PRESENT STATE 

OF 

CHRISTIANITY 

AND OF THE 

MISSIONARY ESTABLISHMENTS 

FOR ITS 

PROPAGATION 
IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD, 



EDITED 

BY EREDERIC SHOBERL, 



i 'he diffusion of Christianity is at the same time the diffusion 
- ivilizatioiij and moral freedom.— Introduction. 



PRINTED BY J. & J. HAllPJBll, 

OR COLLINS AND HANNAY, COLLINS AND CO., G. Ax\D C. CARYIL.. 
AND J. LEAVITT ;— BOSTON, CROCKER AND BREWSTER. RICH 
ARDSON AND LORD, IIILLIARD, GRAY, AND CO., BOLLES INJ 
^RBORN, AND R. P. AND C. WILLIAMS. 



1828. 



z 






J' 






JAN** U>^ 



TO THE 

PATRONS, DIRECTORS, AND MEMBERS, 

OF ALL THE 

BENEFICENT SOCIETIES 

ENGAGED IN THE HOLS' WORK OF DIFFUSING 

CHRISTIANITY 

AND THE ATTENDANT BLESSINGS 

OF 

CIVILIZATION, AND KNOWLEDGE 

AMONG THE 

NATIONS OF THE EARTH. 

THIS VOLUME 

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 

F. SHOBERL. 



PREFACE. 



In a country distinguished above all others by 
the strenuous efforts of numerous Societies, and 
by the liberal pecuniary contributions of indivi- 
duals, for the propagation of Christianity in all 
parts of the world, any recommendation of a book 
chiefly designed to exhibit the effects of those 
efforts would be almost superfluous. Some reflec- 
tions on the importance of this object will, how- 
ever, be found in the Introduction, to which the 
reader is referred. It will, therefore, be unneces- 
sary for me to solicit more than a moment's atten- 
tion here, for the purpose of explaining the nature 
of my participation in this volume. 

Justice requires the acknowledgment that the 
groundwork was furnished by a publication from 
the pen of Mr. H. Zschokke, a well-known Ger- 
man writer, many years resident in Switzerland, 
whose numerous literary productions attest his 
ardent desire to promote the best interests of man- 
kind. Its first appearance was in the year 1819. 
To complete his Sketch by supplying the events 
worthy of record during the intermediate period 
down to the present year, I have had recourse to 



VI PREFACE. 

the Reports of our principal Societies engaged in. 
the propagation of Christianity and in the circula- 
tion of the Bible, and toother authentic materials. 
The additions which they have enabled me to make 
I purposed at first to introduce in the form of 
notes, to avoid interfering with the work of ano- 
ther ; but, to spare the reader the inconvenience of 
referring to and fro and the consequent unpleasant 
interruption of the thread of the text, I have been 
induced to forego that intention and to interweave 
all such additions in their proper places. 

If we have between us presented as accurate 
and ample a picture of the subject as the narrow 
limits of this volume would permit, to the Public, 
it must be matter of the utmost indifference by 
whom such or such passages have been contributed. 
The enlightened author will not I trust have reason 
to be ashamed of the partnership into which he has 
been involuntarily brought; and if the work shall 
prove the means of refreshing in one mind con- 
victions of the divinity and eternal truth of Chris- 
tianity — of removing one of the strong mutual 
prejudices still cherished by many of the sects 
professing the religion of Jesus — or of kindling in 
one bosom an active zeal for the promotion ot 
human happiness by the diffusion of the beneficent 
doctrines inculcated by its founder — cordially shall 
I congratulate myself on my humble co-operation 
with the philanthropic foreigner. 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 13 

PART I.— EUROPE. 

Chapter I. — Diffusion of Christianity in the First Eight 

Centuries . 22 

Chapter II.— Diffusion of the Faith to the Present Time 27 

Chapter III. — Description of Lapland and Finland — Relics 
of Ancient Paganism — Attempts to Convert the Roving 
Tribes within the Polar Circle to Christianity 30 

Chapter IV. — Conclusion 35 

PART II.— ASIA. 

Chapter I. — Review of the First Diffusion and Subsequent 

Suppression of Christianity in Asia . . 37 

Chapter II. — State of the Christian Sects in Turkey in 
Asia — Catholics, Greeks, Maronites, &c. — Their bar- 
barism 40 

Chapter III. — The Paganism of Siberia and the Russian 
States — Defective Institutions for Conversion— Con- 
ventual Schools — Missions 4& 

Chapter IV. — Attempts of the Jesuits and Capuchins in 
Tibet — Resemblance of the Ecclesiastical System of 
Lamaism to that of the Catholic and Greek Churches 58 

Chapter V. — Religions in Japan — Severity towards the 

Christians G3 

Chapter VI.— State of the Christian Congregations in the 

Chinese Empire — Dissensions among the Missionaries GG 

Chapter VII. — Survey of Tunkin, Cochin China, and 

the Birman Empire — The Palee Language 74 

Chapter VIII. — Survey of Hindoostan — Former narrow- 
minded Policy of the East India Company in regard to 
Missions — Schwartz, the Missionary — State of the 
Protestant and Catholic Missions — The Syrian Chris- 
tians 85 

Chapter IX. — The Persian Christians — Zabeans — Suflas 100 

Chapter X. — Ceylon and Java— State of Christianity in 

the other large Asiatic Islands 109 

Chapter XI. — General Observations on the Slow Progress 
of Christianity in Asia , 121 



VJ11 CONTENTS. 

PART HI.— AFRICA. 

Chapter I.— Rise and Decline of Christianity in this quar- 
ter of the Globe 128 

Chapter II. — Present Christian Sects in Egypt 134 

Chapter III. — The Jacobites in Abyssinia — Fruitless At- 
tempts of the Catholics to establish Missions 137 

Chapter IV. — East Coast of Africa — Madagascar — Isle of 
Bourbon , , 142 

Chapter V. — Cape of Good Hope — Protestant Missions 

for the Conversion of the Hottentots, Caffres, &c. . . » 146 

Chapter VI.— The West Coast of Africa— Congo— Loango 154 

Chapter VII. — Guinea — Sierra Leone — Christianity of 
Gambia , 156 

Chapter VIII.— The West African Islands * . . 16$ 

PART IV.— AMERICA. 

Chapter I. — Introduction of Christianity in America— Las 

Casas .../ 170 

Chapter II. — Lost Christianity on the East Coast of 
Greenland — The Venerable Hans Egede — the Breth- 
ren's Congregations in Greenland , . 1 72 

Chapter III. — The Missions in Labrador — Paganism in 
the extreme North of America 17.3 

Chapter IV. — Survey of the Two Canadas — Astonishing 
Progress of Religion and Civilization among the Savage 
Tribes in and near the United States and the Spanish 
Territories in North America 184 

Chapter V. — Spirit of Conversion in Spanish North Ame- 
rica — The Caiifornians — Their Religious Notions 193 

Chapter VI. — The Spanish and Portuguese Possessions in 
South America — Empire of the Jesuits on the Uraguay 
— Slow Progress of Christianity of late years 202 

Chapter VII. — Survey of Brazil and Guiana 212 

Chapter VIII. — The West India Islands — Negro Slaves — 
The Empire of the Blacks in Hayti— Activity of the 
Protestant Missionaries in the British and Danish 
"Islands 216 

Chapter IX. — General Observations on the Diffusion of 
Christianity in America 220 

PART V.— SOUTH INDIA. 

Chapter I. — New Holland — First Christian Settlement in 

New Zealand 227 

Chapter II. — Conversion of the Society Islanders to 
Christianity — Survey of the Friendly and Sandwich 

Islands. 238 

'.)'tf,r III.— Conclusion 259 



SURVEY 

OP 

CHRISTIANITY- 



INTRODUCTION. 



The superiority of the Europeans in arts, sciences, and 
civil institutions, is not by any means to be ascribed to the 
influence of their soil and climate. This part of the globe 
was one vast Scythia, long after India, China, Persia, Syria, 
Asia Minor, Egypt, and Greece, were distinguished for 
knowledge, industry, and civilization. But, after the pro- 
digious wars and the successive invasions of migratory 
barbarians, it rose far above the Asiatic and African states, 
because it had embraced Christianity. In the East the 
human mind appears, amid the wreck of what has been, 
in a state of deplorable torpor, bowed down by servitude 
and despotism. 

Had the doctrine of the Messiah pursued its course towards 
the east or south, instead of spreading to the west and 
north, who knows whether at this day those regions might 
not be occupied by the most polished nations of the globe, 
while we should be half-savages in comparison with them ? 
To what cause was it owing that Greece, Asia, Egypt, and 
Carthage, after being crushed by barbarian invaders, did not 
rise again so speedily and so buoyantly as Italy, Gaul, and 
the south of Germany ? — There, Mongols and Muhaaie- 
dans terminated the universal revolution ; but the conquer- 
ors of Italy, Gaul, and Germany, the Goths, Lombards, 
and Franks, were already Christians. 

2 



14 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

As far as we know, there never yet existed a nation 
without some reverence for the supernatural. Even the 
polytheists and idolaters, who, with rude simplicity, adore 
the power of a Supreme Being under images made with 
their own hands, or in the splendour of certain natural 
phenomena — even these reverence, fear, and love, what 
we do. 

With the origin of nations and states arose many differ- 
ent notions of heavenly things. But that which Christ 
imparted to mankind is the most perfect and the most sa- 
cred, because it harmonizes as completely with the econo- 
my of Nature as with the eternal laws of the spiritual 
world ; it is, therefore, adapted to all countries and to all 
ages ; it cannot be improved by any human wisdom or in- 
genuity, legislation or form of government ; but, on the 
other hand, it refines, ennobles, and communicates its di- 
vine spirit to the ideas of philosophers, lawgivers, moralists, 
and politicians. It is the root and stock of all religions — 
the highest and the holiest, upon which all of them are 
founded. Hence it fills the mind with pure images of the 
all-perfect Being and with longing after him. Hence it 
stimulates to the cultivation of the sciences ; and these 
again, by a grateful reaction, divest the doctrine of its di* 
vine author of human deformities, and of the inventions 
of ignorance, fanaticism, and priestly love of rule. 

The diffusion of Christianity — not merely of its church- 
ceremonies—is at the same time viffusion of knowledge, 
civilization, and moral freedom. We cannot, therefore, 
be friends to our kind, friends to reason, without ardently 
wishing for the extension of the all-glorifying kingdom 
of God, and beholding with transport the ennobling of our 
race in every region under heaven. 

The late excellent Dr. Milne, in his " Retrospect of 
the First Ten Years of the Protestant Mission to China, 53 
in which he spent the latter part of his life, has so ably ex- 
hibited, in a short compass, the admirable adaptation of 
the Christian religion to the character and circumstances 
of the whole human race, that I cannot forbear transcribing 
his words : — 

" Christianity, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, is the 
Only religion which is in all respects adapted to the moral 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

state of the whole world ; hence it possesses an indisputable 
and unrivalled claim to universal preference. The positive 
declarations of its divine author prove it to be intended for 
the whole family of man ; and its doctrines, precepts, and 
ritual, all unite to declare its suitableness to the internal cha- 
racter and external circumstances of sinful creatures in 
every state of society and in every part of the earth. 

" Its doctrines, though in some particulars above the 
comprehension of man in the present infancy of his being, 
are yet remarkablv adapted to exercise his intellectual facul- 
' ties and all in perfect conformity with the dictates of sound 
reason. Their unequalled sublimity imparts an elevated 
character to the mind, which the utmost refinements of 
human wisdom could never produce. Their certainty 
brings the world out of that maze of endless perplexities, 
in which the best and most enlightened pagan sages wan- 
dered, and led after them the blinded multitude. The 
powerful support which the doctrines of Christianity afford 
to the hopes of the. guilty pacifies the conscience, purifies 
the heart, and gladdens the countenance. Their greatness 
enlarges the soul and raises it to God ; while their fulness 
and variety furnish endless topics of thought and exhaust- 
less sources of pleasure. Most of them are easily under- 
stood, and they are full of consolation to the truly penitent 
and to the upright in heart. 

" Its precepts are all simple, holy, reasonable, and 
useful to man in every capacity and in every relation of 
life ; and man's dependence on the Supreme Being, his 
circumstances in the world, the desires of his immortal 
nature, and the testimony of his conscience, all prove it 
to be both his duty and his interest to obey. 

" Its ritual is neither complicated, expensive, nor irk- 
some. Christianity can be carried to all parts of the 
world, and observed just as well where neither gold, silver, 
gems, nor materials for costly array exist, as where they 
are found in the richest abundance. It enjoins no uni- 
formity of dress, no vexatious peculiarities in the gait, 
gestures, and postures, of its worshippers ; no magnifi- 
cent temples or expensive apparatus for the celebration of 
divine ordinances ; no technical shibboleth to charac- 
terize the doctrines of the followers of Jesus. Simpli- 



16 SURVEY OF CHItKTlANITY. 

^ity and utility are the characteristics of its observances* 
Piety, truth, justice, purity, peaceableness, benevolence, 
and usefulness of life, are the only marks by which it re- 
quires the servants of God to distinguish themselves from 
the world fc which lieth in wickedness.' 

" Christianity claims the world as the sphere of its 
operations ; it knows no other locality. It commands the 
nations to give up nothing but what is injurious for them 
to retain, and proposes nothing foV their acceptance but 
what they are miserable without. It casts not slight on 
any one country by exalting the virtues and glory of 
another. It represents all people and nations as on a 
level in the eyes of God — as equally offenders against 
him, equally subject to the decisions of his awful justice, 
and equally Welcome to the benefits of his abundant 
mercy. Its moraf and positive duties are equally binding 
on all to whom the Gospel is made known ; its salvation 
and privileges are open on the same terms to all who re- 
ceive them, without distinction of age, rank, talent, or 
country ; and its tremendous denunciations will be exe- 
cuted on all who reject or abuse it, without partiality and 
without the possibility of appeal or escape. 

" It commands nothing inconsistent with the outward 
condition of nations or individuals to perform ; while it 
contains the germ of every principle necessary to render the 
throne stable, the nation prosperous, the family happy, the 
individual virtuous, and the soul eternally blessed. Chris- 
tianity is the only religion fitted for universal adoption, 
and the only one capable of conducting the world to im- 
mortal felicity. It is the duty of all who expect to be 
saved by Christ to do, their utmost for the extension of 
Christian knowledge." 

To the testimony of this eloquent servant of God I 
shall subjoin a brief exposition of the beneficial effeots 
resulting from the efforts for the diffusion of Christianity, 
by the Rev. Dr. Philip, the active superintendent of the 
establishments of the London Missionary Society in 
South Africa. 

u In those countries where our missions have gained a 
marked ascendancy, there is scarcely one spot, however 
much secluded, impervious to their all-pervading light and 



INTRODUCTION* 17 

feeat. Even while they are grossly misrepresented and 
spoken against, they are checking the undue exercise of 
power ; raising the standard of morals ; literally pro- 
claiming liberty to the captives, and opening the prison- 
doors to those that are bound ; diffusing abroad the light 
of science and literature ; undermining the false systems 
of religion against which they have to contend ; multi- 
plying those charitable institutions which have for their 
object the relief of suffering humanity ; vanquishing infi- 
delity by the most direct and powerful of all arguments, 
by living exhibitions of the truths of Christianity ; chang- 
ing the face of our colonies, and accelerating the ap- 
proach of that moral revolution which will sooner or later 
Usher in the kingdoms of the world as the kingdom of 
our Lord and his Christ." 

After quoting these testimonies, it may perhaps be 
deemed presumptuous in me to subjoin any further remark 
in illustration of the excellence of that religion which 
forms the subject of this volume. At the hazard, how- 
ever, of incurring this censure, I shall add an observation, 
which seems to me to deserve the serious attention alike 
of the statesman, the philosopher, and the philanthropist 

One of the first and most important effects of Chris- 
tianity is to elevate and ennoble the female character, and 
to place woman in that station which she ought to hold 
in society. She — who was destined to be the partner of 
man, the depository of his thoughts, his solace in afflic- 
tion, his counsellor in adversity and prosperity ; to sooth 
him by the exercise of the kindliest affections at home for 
the crosses tnd vexations which he has to encounter 
abroad — she is reduced by the Savage to the level of the 
slave, or even of the brutes which he has domesticated for 
his service. Throughout the whole eastern world, by the 
more polished professors of the doctrines of Muhamedj 
of Buddha, and of Fohi, constituting a very great ma- 
jority of the human race, woman is regarded as of inferior 
nature to the other §ex, by which she is held in profound 
subjection, and treated as a being formed solely to minis* 
ter to the passions, pleasures, and caprices, of her lord. 
The religion of Christ calls her from this degraded state 
t© the equal participation in the privileges and enjoyments 

9* 



18 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of man ; it raises and refines his own character in the 
same proportion as it inspires him with consideration for 
hers — for where the character of woman is most respecta- 
ble and respected, there we invariably find most public 
virtue and private happiness. 

The total number of human beings at present inhabit- 
ing the globe is by some computed at between a thousand 
and twelve hundred millions ; but, in a table, furnished 
by a German publication, the Allgemeine Kirchenzeitung^ 
printed at Darmstadt, which appears to have been dili- 
gently compiled from the most authentic sources, and ex- 
hibits the population of the earth according to its differ- 
ent religions, the total number of inhabitants is estimated 
at eight hundred and twenty-eight millions. Of these 
two hundred and thirty-five millions are competed to be 
professors of Christianity ; two and a half millions Jews ; 
one hundred and fifteen millions Muhamedans ; ten mil- 
lions disciples of Zoroaster and Confucius ; while the 
Polytheists, composed of Lamaites, Brahminists, Bud- 
hists, and Fetish worshippers, amount to four hundred and 
sixty-six millions. What an immense field, then, is still 
open for the most exalted species of beneficence ! 

Europe has already rendered immense benefit to the 
other portions of the globe, by the diffusion of the divine 
revelations concepning the dearest interests of mankind. 
For ages past, thousands of pious men have gone forth 
into both the Indies to carry thither the light of Chris- 
tianity. In many cities of Europe, considerable efforts 
have been made for spreading civilization and the arts and 
sciences in the remotest regions. In the Orphan-House, at 
Halle, were trained teachers for the two Indies. Paris 
and Naples instructed Arabs and Chinese. Russia made 
Irkutzk an academy for Tartars and Japanese. Rome 
accomplished more than all the rest. Here the Congre- 
gation for the Propagation of the Faith has, ever since 
the seventeenth century, despatched into all the world 
messengers of God, educated for this especial purpose. 
Works were printed in this congregation in more than 
thirty languages, foreign to Europe. The Seminary for 
the Diffusion of the Faith co-operated in its efforts, 
Avhich were emulated by the Congregation of the Priests 



INTHODITCTION. 19 

of the Foreign Missions, the French Seminary for Mis- 
sions to Foreign Nations, and the French Congregation 
of St. Sacrament. 

In all the Protestant world there were a few years since 
but four or five Societies for the conversion of the heathen, 
of which the church of England furnished two, and another 
was the exemplary Society of the United Brethren. Now 
the Church Missionary Society is added to those of the 
United Church — the Church of Scotland has her Societies 
— every principal denomination of Christians, not of the 
established churches, has formed its own institution — the 
Protestants of the continent are uniting in a Missionary 
Society, which is awakening an interest from Basle, the 
seat of its deliberations, in all the countries round ; and the 
fire is kindled in the American churches : — the Congre- 
gational — the Presbyterian — the Baptist — the Methodist 
Churches of the United States — are all acting with zeal in 
the cause — and the whole Episcopal Church, with its nine 
bishops, has recently formed a society for sending the Gos- 
pel to the heathen of the American continent, and through- 
out the world. 

We witness also the rise of institutions around us, which 
take up all the various departments of labour for ultimately 
rendering the earth one great garden of God. Missionary 
Societies break up the ground and prepare the seed — Bible 
Societies multiply that seed and scatter it, by the hands 
of the missionary and other labourers, all over the world — 
Jews' Societies are training the most irrefragable witnesses, 
and probably the most successful preachers of the divine 
word — Education Societies are giving a powerful im- 
pulse to that universal instruction which is to prepare 
readers of the word — Tract Societies are calling the 
attention of men to that word — and the primitive and apos- 
tolic Liturgy of the English Church is teaching multitudes 
in what manner to worship Jehovah. 

The importance of the operations of some of these So- 
cieties may be inferred from the following authentic state- 
ments : — 

The Church Missionary Society had, in 1827, in its. 
nine Missions, in the Mediterranean, West Africa, Cal- 
cutta and North India, Madras and South India, Bombay 



$0 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

and Western India, Ceyion, Australasia, West Indies, and 
North West America, 54 stations, with which are connected 
286 schools. All these stations employ 458 labourers, of 
whom 124 are Europeans and 334 born in the respective 
countries where they are employed, in the schools there 
are 13,447 scholars, 9,479 of whom are boys, 3,036 girls, 
and 882 adults. Many churches have been built ; and at 
some of the principal stations printing-presses have been 
established, from which the Scriptures, Liturgy, and reli- 
gious tracts, are issued in large numbers. 

This Society has founded at Islington, near London, a 
seminary for preparing and training missionaries, in which 
there were at the same period thirty-one students. The 
first examination took place in July, 1827 ; and it has 
been determined to enlarge the buildings'for the accommo- 
dation of fifty students. 

The gross receipts of the same Society for the year end- 
ing May, 1827, including the contributions to the Institu- 
tion at Islington, fell very little short of 4t),000Z. The net 
income available to the general purposes of the Society, 
during the same period, was nearly 43.300Z., and the ex- 
penditure 40,470Z. 

The London Missionary Society has stations in many 
of the South Sea Islands, at Malacca and in Java, in most 
of the principal cities in British Hindoostan, in Siberia, in 
the Mediterranean, in South Africa, both within and 
beyond the Colony of the Cape, in Madagascar and Mau- 
ritius, and at Demerara and Berbice, in the West Indies ; 
in which are employed nearly one hundred European mis* 
sionaries and assistants, besides native teachers. The con- 
tributions to this Society, in the year ending March, 1827, 
amounted to nearly 33,700/., and the disbursements during 
the same period to upwards of 43,U00Z. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society, from its estab- 
lishment in 1804, to March, 18^7, had issued upwards of 
5,200,000 Bibles and New Testaments. In this number 
are comprehended forty-two re-prints, five re-translations 5 
fifty-seven languages and dialects in which the Scriptures 
had not been printed before the institution of the Society, 
and forty-three new translations in progress. The total 
receipts of the Society during the year preceding March f 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

1827, were little less than 100,OOOZ., and the sums paid 
for translating and printing amounted to nearly 63,000Z., 
When it is recollected that these and all the other So- 
cieties established for the propagation of Christianity are 
entirely supported by voluntary contributions, it must be 
admitted that their pious and benevolent efforts for the im- 
provement of the human species constitute one of the most 
admirable traits in the picture of the present age. The 
attempt, therefore, imperfect as it may be, to delineate 
the present state of Christianity in the different regions of 
the globe, can scarcely fail to prove an acceptable offering 
to many ; I am certain, at least, that it would be difficult 
to find one possessing stronger claims to the consideration 
of every enlightened observer. 



PART THE FIRST- 



EUROPE. 



CHAPTER I. 

DIFFUSION OF CHRIST IAN IT Y IN THE FIRST EIGHT 
CENTURIES. 

It is not more difficult to point out the finger of God in 
the wonders of history than in the wonders of Nature. 

The three years in which Christ, poor and despised, 
preached his doctrine among a poor and despised people, 
were incontestable the mosr suitable epoch for the purpose 
in the six thousand years to which our historical records 
extend. We are not less astonished at the subsequent 
concatenation and power of circumstances, that wisely cal- 
culated game of accidents, if you choose to term it so, which 
developed the seed of the Gospel of Christ into a tree of 
Jife for numberless tribes and nations. Antiquated thrones 
and religions of the time, victors and vanquished, nations 
issuing from unknown wilds, submitted at length to become 
but instruments in an invisible, irresistible hand, for the 
accomplishment of the great work for which Christ was 
destined to bleed on Golgotha. But this is not the proper 
place to pursue that mysterious topic. 

The few individuals who went forth from the school of 
Jesus carried, it is well known, the light which they re- 
ceived from him, with equally astonishing courage and 
success, from Jerusalem into the neighbouring and re- 
moter countries. They conveyed it through Syria, Phoeni- 
cia, and the rest of Asia Minor, to Greece and Italy. 



EUROPE. 23 

Whether Mark imparted it to the Egyptians, and Thomas 
or Andrew to the interior of Asia, we know not : but 
the traditions preserved by the oldest ecclesiastical histo- 
rians are not improbable. So early as the second cen- 
tury of our era, Justin Martyr exuited, though indeed 
rather prematurely, in these terms : — " There is not a 
tribe, either among the Greeks or foreigners, even among 
those that live without any permanent places of abode, 
by whom praise and thanksgiving are not offered to the 
Father and Creator of the universe, in the name of the 
crucified Jesus." 

The sublime perspicuity and simplicity of the new re- 
ligion, the persuasive force with which it addresses itself 
to all minds, the purity of life and the contempt of death 
manifested by its first professors, soon gained it numerous 
friends. Besides the urgency of the times and the unity 
of the empire of the world, of which Rome was the heart, 
the removal of the legions of the Cajsars, now transported 
from Asia to Africa, and presently from Africa to Eu- 
rope, certainly contributed not a little to the diffusion of 
Christianity. Many of the soldiers who had no home hut 
the conquered world, and who found, beyond the frontier 
of every new state, new deities and new forms of worship, 
could not fail to imbibe at length a thorough contempt 
for these religious absurdities. Unbelief began at Rome 
with the return of the armies from remote provinces of 
the empire. 

But the notion of higher supernatural beings was not 
extinguished in the bosoms of men together with the re- 
verence for the ancient mythology. The well-informed 
warrior, at home in every part of the world, needed a 
God independent of the narrow limits of countries, and a 
faith independent of the priesthood of the nations. What, 
he had an obscure feeling of was rendered clear to him 
by the simple doctrine of Jesus. What he learned of 
this doctrine in Asia, Kgypt, or Greece, he communicated 
to others in Gaul and Britain. 

It is not improbable that in this manner Christianity 
was partially introduced, or that at least the way was 
paved for it among the nations of Europe. We know 
that the orthodox bishops of Britain afterwards found in 



24 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the Scottish Highlands a sort of Christians who knew 
nothing of the Pope and of the Roman Catholic dogmas. 
Neither is it unlikely that the doctrine of John the Baptist 
was carried by the legions, or even by merchants, from the 
banks of Jordan into far distant countries. For, if we 
may give any credit to the most ancient records and the 
symbolical customs of the Freemasons, we shall find that 
these people in their assemblies and lodges seem to have 
long known nothing of Christ and of the Cross, but that, 
besides retaining the pagan libation — Funde merum Ge- 
nio! — they talked much of Pythagoras and still more 
about John. 

In the third century there existed a great number of 
Christian congregations, as well in western Asia and 
North Africa as on the European coasts of the Mediterra- 
nean. The sacred Scriptures of Christendom were cir- 
culated both in Latin and in Syrian, Egyptian, and Ethio- 
pic translations. The indifference or partiality of indi- 
vidual emperors or local authorities to the votaries of the 
new religion afforded time for the establishment and diffu- 
sion of its principles. The impolicy of particular perse- 
cutions raised against it tended still more to produce this 
effect. But for these persecutions the first holy ardour 
would perhaps speedily have cooled. Now, however, 
exiles carried with them the opinions for which they suf- 
fered to countries where they were yet unknown. The 
confidence and fortitude of individual martyrs now in- 
spired the other Christians with enthusiastic courage, and 
excited the astonished pagans to the investigation of a 
faith for which men and women gloried to die. The pro- 
fessors now exerted themselves the more strenuously to 
increase their numbers among all classes of the people ; 
partly from piety, partly from the very natural wish to gain 
more general acceptance for their own convictions, and 
partly to be rendered more secure from future dangers by 
the strength of their community. 

Hence it was that Christianity spread throughout Eu- 
rope with wonderful power and rapidity ; that whole 
places, whole legions, nay, even many of the most dis- 
tinguished statesmen and generals, embraced the new 
religion ; and that at last the Emperor Constantine, who 



EUROPE. 25 

is called the Great, deemed it consistent with his policy 
to declare publicly in favour of the hitherto persecuted 
party. Though by far the greater portion of the people 
steadfastly adhered to the ancient paganism, yet- the 
Christians, by means of their numbers, their influence, 
their learned men, and their desperate resolution, were of 
sufficient consequence in all parts of the empire to be 
the grateful protectors of an oft-shaken and tottering 
throne. The energetic activity with which the emperor 
followed up his politic declaration, combined with the 
ardent zeal of the professors of his new faith, proved de- 
cisive. The Christian became the predominant religion 
of the Roman empire in the fourth century. 

The Emperor Julian, disgusted in the recollection of 
the past glories of Rome with the then state of things, 
strove once more, but in vain, to re-establish the exploded 
polytheism of antiquity. He mistook Christianity, which 
is not surprising, since it was mistaken, though indeed in 
a different sense, even by many of the Christians of his 
day ; he mistook his age : he shared, therefore, the fate 
of those who oppose the spirit of their time. Mean- 
while Persia and Armenia, and the inhabitants of the 
countries situated between the Black Sea and the Cas- 
pian, received apostles of the gospel. Ulphilas gave to 
his Goths in lYloesia the narratives of the Evangelists in 
their native language ; and Frumentius, the Egyptian* 
carried the substance of them beyond the great cataracts 
of the Nile, across the sandy deserts to Habesh. 

Christianity was established in three parts of the world, 
but the Roman empire in them was destroyed. Vandals 
and Goths, iVllemans, Franks, and Lombards, were ac- 
quainted with tho doctrines of Christ. They founded 
new empires, but not a new religion. On the other hand* 
the terror spread in the fifth century by the ferocious 
Huns strengthened with superstitious fear and hope the 
inclination of numberless minds to Christianity ; while 
bold champions of the faith were not weary of proclaim- 
ing the gospel of the crucified Jesus in the mountains of 
Lebanon and Antilibanus, in th€ forests of Germany aitfl 
Ireland, and even on the coast of Malabar. 

The convulsions of the European world from the if&%- 

3 



26 SITRVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 

sions of the barbarians were not detrimental to tbe propa- 
gation of the Christian faith. Those who were then living 
had just reason to fear that every thing would be subvert- 
ed by northern barbarism. We, of a later period, are ena- 
bled on the contrary to discover in the result of these pro- 
digious revolutions the overruling power of an all- wise 
Providence. There were moments — for what are ages 
to eternity ? — in which the pure light became fainter, in- 
asmuch as it was more dispersed. The north, however, 
was destined to impart new life and youth to the south, 
and to derive from it a higher degree of civilization. 

As the doctrine of the Cross now be^an to extend its 
dominion among the barbarous conquerors in the west, 
it lost in the seventh century a great part of the east.—- 
Here, in Arabia, arose Muhamed, the founder of a new 
faith, who enforced with a conquering sword the truth of 
his revelations. He and his successors left to the van- 
quished no choice between the adoption of the Koran and 
slavery or death. Thus was Christianity exterminated in 
Arabia, Syria, Persia, Palestine, Egypt, and the whole 
north of Africa, where the religion of the prophet of 
Mecca now held exclusive sway. Spain itself was sub- 
jugated by the Arab arms ; France, Italy, Helvetia, 
were menaced, till Charles, surnamed M artel, set bounds 
in the battle of Tours to their victorious career. The 
valour or the good fortune of Charles saved France and 
Germany from the caliphat and the Koran. 

Compared with this event it seemed to be a matter of 
much less consequence that Columbanus and Kilian, na- 
tives of Scotland, Gajlus, an Irishman, Willibrod, the 
Anglo-Saxon, Winfried, and others, preached the Gos- 
pel to some German tribes, and to the people of the Hel- 
vetian mountains, and overthrew the altars of paganism ; 
and that the Emperor Charles the First, commonly styled 
the Great, appeared like a Christian Muhamed to the 
Saxons and the inhabitants of the plains of Pannonia, 
and converted them with the edge of the sword. But in 
the history of the world nothing is to be termed important 
or unimportant, if it operates mediately or immediately 
upon the minds of men. The loss of Jerusalem, Alex- 
andria, Antioch, or Carthage, seemed, indeed, to be 



EUROPE. 27 

but ill compensated by the advantages which Christianity 
obtained in the wilds of Helvetia, Hesse, Thuringia, and 
Saxony : but in these very regions subsequently originated 
the great Reformation of the 16th century, the effect? 
of which extended to the remotest parts of the globe, 
and regained for Christianity a great part of Asia, Africa* 
and America. 



CHAPTER 1L 

DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

With the ninth century, the Cross advanced farther 
and farther northward. Ansgar made it known to the 
Jutlanders and Cimbri, the Danes and Swedes, and Rem- 
bert, of Bremen, to the people of Brandenburg ; while 
it was received in Bohemia. Moravia, and Dalmatia, and 
introduced, through the zeal of Constantinople, among 
the heathen on the Lower Danube, as far as the Ukraine. 
The gospel of Christ was proclaimed even in the frozen 
regions of Iceland and Greenland. The savage Rugi, 
in Pomerania, the still more savage Norwegians and 
Russians, as well as the Sarmatians and Hungarians, re- 
ceived baptism a hundred years later ; as did the Fins, 
the Livonians, the Lettes, the Prussians, and the Slavo- 
nians, in the twelfth or thirteenth century. 

The conversion of all these and other nations origi- 
nated, it is true, in the pious zeal of Christian princes and 
priests ; but on the part of the new converts, it was more 
rarely that better conviction operated so forcibly as the 
policy of the pagan princes, the obedience of their 
subjects, or the fear excited in both by the victorious 
arms of Christian neighbours. It is well known that 
the Pope, after the crusades in the East had failed to 
rescue the holy sepulchre from the hands of the Saracens* 
commanded crusades against the heathen of the North, 
It is well known with what cruelties and inhuman atrocities 



28 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the invaders, especially those from Germany, forced the 
kingdom of Goa\ as they termed it, upon the brave Li- 
vonians, Lettes, Prussians, &c. They proceeded nearly 
in the same manner as Charles, styled the Great and 
the Holy, had done with the Saxons ; as the Spaniards 
and Portuguese, two or three centuries later, preached 
Christianity to the Americans ; or as the successors of 
Muhamed continued to propagate the doctrines of the 
Koran. 

The Christianity proffered at the bloody point of the 
sword was, indeed, not the doctrine of Jesus ; it was a 
Christian paganism. The barbarians exchanged the gods 
of their country fbr the images of loreigners ; they 
learned to make the sign of the cross, to kneel, and to 
recite a prayer. Hence, it was not surprising either that 
whole nations should be baptized in one year, or to see 
them in the course of a few years become apostates from 
Christianity, because old habits are not easily changed 
for new customs. The Prussians fought manfully till the 
fourteenth century for their ancient gods. 

The Christianity of those dayis, if Christianity it may- 
be termed, could not of course have any perceptibly be- 
neficial influence on the civilization and mental culture of 
the converted nations. The first step towards this was 
nevertheless taken. The notion of the unity of God, of 
the immortality of the soul, of the consequences of hu- 
man actions after death, became more general. Rude 
and confused as this notion might still be. as well among 
the converters as the converted, still it was the first ray of 
light penetrating their mental darkness. Besides, the 
circumstance of their having one common religion occa- 
sioned a brisker intercourse between the half-savage tribes 
and the more polished nations, and made the former bet- 
ter acquainted with the inventions, arts, sciences, and 
civil institutions of foreigners. That which the church 
called sin was shunned less from love of the Supreme 
Being and of virtue, than from fear of purgatory, hell, and 
the devil. Still the gentle virtues of humanity and the 
pure conceptions of right and wrong were at this period 
gradually developed. The civilization of northern fol- 
lowed that of southern Europe with more rapid pace thar 



EUROPE. ^9 

might have been expected. So early as the fourteenth 
and fifteenth century the sciences flourished with renewed 
vigour in numberless conventual schools and academies. 

The ground gained by Christianity during the fifteenth 
century, at the western extremity of Europe, by the ex- 
pulsion of the Muhamedan Moors from Spain, was again 
lost at its south-eastern point, in the subjugation of Greece 
by Turkish valour. The ancient and far-famed churches 
of Constantinople, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Philippi. 
were transformed into mosques, and the Koran drove 
back the Gospel to the frontiers of Hungary. 

Such was the state of things nearly till our own times. 
The whole of this part of the world, excepting Turkey, 
professed the doctrine of Jesus ; for the idols of Samogi- 
tia also were mostly destroyed in the fifteenth century r 
and in Turkey, too, Christianity was by no means wholly 
exterminated. More than half the European subjects of 
the Grand Signor remained Christians. 

Out of the one hundred and eighty million inhabitants 
of Europe, about one hundred and sixty-nine belong to 
some one of the different Christian churches.* Of these 
the Catholic prevails in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, 
the south of Germany, Poland, the Austrian dominions, 
and some parts of Switzerland ; — the Protestant, in 
Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, the 
north of Germany, the Netherlands, and part of the 
Swiss confederation ; and the ancient Greek church in the 
Russian empire. Europe now contains no relics of pa- 
ganism, excepting here and there in the extreme north, 
in the rarely frequented icy regions of the Fins and Lap- 
landers. 

* Humboldt, who estimates the population of Europe at 198 millions, 
assumes that out of this number 103 millions are Unman Catholics, 52 
millions Protestants, 38 millions followers of the Greek ritual, am! 
5 millions Muhamedans, 



3* 



3G SURVEY OF .CHRISTIANITY.. 



CHAPTER III. 

DESCRIPTION OF LAPLAND AND FINLAND RELICS OF 

ANCIENT PAGANISM ATTEMPTS TO CONVERT THE 

ROVING TRIBES WITHIN THE POLAR CIRCLE TO CHRIS- 
TIANITY. 

Beyond the northern polar circle, and even on this 
side of it, where the continent of Sweden and Norway, 
indented by numberless bays into narrow promontories 
and peninsulas, runs out towards the icy ocean, is situated 
the extensive region composed of Finmark, Normaik, 
and Lapmark. It occupies an area of about one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand square miles, and is consequently 
equal in extent to France or Germany. A thin popula- 
tion is scattered over these provinces, where nature rare- 
Jy assumes a smiling aspect. Upon an average there 
may be reckoned four square miles to each individual. 

How could it be otherwise ? It is a barren soil, without 
towns or traffic. The length and severity of the winter 
rarely permit any species of grain to thrive ; nor will fruit- 
trees grow there. In the depth of winter, the inhabitants 
of the northernmost districts have no sun for seven suc- 
cessive weeks, and this long dreary night is interrupted 
only by a twilight of an hour and a half or two hours 
about noon. Even in the height of summer the tops of the 
mountains are seen covered with snow, which never melts 
at an elevation of only three thousand feet above the level 
of the sea. As far as the eye can reach it encounters im- 
mense naked plains, the soil of which is here and there 
covered with grass, but in other places consists, for miles 
together, of moorland r or of dry, sandy, and stony tracts 
bearing a scanty herbage. Woods of gloomy red and 
white firs^ alternate with detached clumps of pines, birch 
trees, and alders, and gradually disappear as you proceed 
northward or come to more elevated regions, There, 



LAPLAND. 31 

nothing is to be seen but scattered bushes and stunted 
birches, which decrease in size, till at length the only 
trees you meet with are a few creeping mountain willows 
and dwarf birches. The mountains of the barren Kiolen 
and Nordfelsen, which have nothing pleasing in their 
forms, rise rugged and abrupt, lifting aloft their dreary 
crags of granite, and fiallars or glaciers, to the height of 
from five to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. 

At the foot of these mountains, on the banks of lakes 
and wild elves or torrents, and along the fiords (bays) on 
the sea coast, dwell the Laplanders and Fin- Laplanders. 
The immense chain of the rugged Kiblian mountains di- 
vides the Norwegian Lapmarks from the others. The in- 
habitants, poor and rude, live dispersed, without agricul- 
ture and without cattle. Some dwell in solid huts con- 
structed of turf, wherever the fishery invites them to fix. 
their permanent abode ; others lead a roving life in circu- 
lar tents, sometimes on heights, sometimes in the valleys, 
where they find subsistence for their herds of reindeer, 
or wood to protect them from the intense cold of winter. 
There is no want of various species of game and wild 
animals, which furnish them with flesh and furs. The 
reindeer supplies excellent milk and cheese, and when 
they travel assists to convey them and their commodities. 
The Fin- Laplander mixes the ground bark of the pine 
(pinus silvestris) with his bread : and the nutritious fee- 
land moss, which covers all the rocks, serves for the food of 
man as well as of the reindeer The northern blackberry 
[rubits arcticus) which is extremely juicy, of most agree- 
able flavour, and thrives in the coldest countries, supplies 
the want of other fruit. The summer is short, but hot. 
and its effects on the vegetable kingdom inconceivably 
rapid. The long winter nights are rendered almost as 
cheerful as day by the snow-glance, the moon-light, and 
the aurora borealis. In general, each family composed 
often, twenty, or thirty persons, has for its summer pere- 
grinations a particular tract of land, on which none of 
its neighbours encroaches : and the roving fatally returns 
once a year invariably to the same spot. 

These people, niggardly as Nature seems to have been 
to them, are happy, for they are free, contented, and have 



3£ SURVEY OF CHBISTIANITY. 

whereupon to subsist. They pay scarcely any impost^ 
and are not forced to sacrifice their young men to the 
military service. They are healthy and robust, seldom 
above five feet in height, and with their simple mode of 
living they usually attain a great age. Good-natured, 
hospitable, and without artifice, they are still somewhat 
shy and suspicious of a stranger at first sight, but never 
disagreeable when they have become more familiar with 
him. Like all mountaineers and roving tribes, they are 
firmly attached to ancient usages and opinions. 

Attempts were made at an early period by Norway 
and Sweden to impart to them notions of Christianity, 
but to very little purpose. With them Jubmel still con- 
tinued to be the Supreme Being, and Perkel the author 
of all evil. They reverenced the one from fear, as much 
as the other from love, just as many Christians reve- 
rence God and the devil. They have besides a long 
catalogue of gods and demi-gods, among whom yet figure 
Thor and Asjik, who reminds us of the Ases of the Edda. 
To these, humbly bowed in the dust, they offer sacrifices f 
namely, the bones and horns of their reindeer, a food 
which is certainly too hard for men, and may therefore 
be more suitable for gods. In other respects the good 
Fin-Laplanders are not much more superstitious than the 
common people of our civilized country. Instead of 
employing teacups or cards, they predict future events 
by means of their little magic drum ; and instead of 
quacks and cunning men and women, they apply to their 
conjurors, whose number, however, is daily diminishing. 

When the Lapmarks were annexed to the Swedish 
crown, the government endeavoured to make Christians 
of their inhabitants. They were forced in several places 
to submit to be married by priests, and to bring their 
children to be baptized ; they were taught to kneel before 
crucifixes — and this was all their Christianity. King 
Gustavus I. subsequently sent priests among them, and 
even built them a school in the town of Pitea, in West 
Bothnia. Charles IX. caused churches to be here and 
there erected in these extensive provinces ; Gustavus 
Adolphus had Lapland school-books printed for them ; 
md Queen Christina furnished them with regular and 



LAPLAND. 33 

permanently resident ministers. All these measures, 
however, were so imperfectly executed, as to prove inade- 
quate to the desired effect. Owing to the diversity of 
Lapland dialects, very few persons understood the lan- 
guage of the school-books ; and, on account of the great 
extent of the country, which, at the conclusion of the 
seventeenth century, contained no more than thirty small 
churches, thousands lived and died without ever seeing 
one of those edifices. 

It was not till the commencement of the eighteenth 
century that Frederic I. of Sweden set about the work 
of conversion more seriously, but indeed rather harshly. 
Every Laplander, who could not annually produce a cer- 
tificate from the minister that he had attended divine ser- 
vice and received the sacrament, was condemned to labour 
at the public works. In 1738, the Bible was translated 
into the Lapland language ; a particular missionary insti- 
tution was also founded, and a fund of three hundred 
thousand dollars was soon collected for its support. Jn 
consequence of these efforts, the whole of Swedish Lap- 
land possessed in 1760, twelve principal and eight subor- 
dinate churches, and six schools. The Kaitomean Lap- 
landers alone, dwelling in the Luleamark, precisely under 
the polar circle, proved refractory till the zealous Peter 
Hogstrom had the courage and perseverance to become 
their apostle. He who, as we know from his description 
of the country, considered all the Laplanders as descend- 
ants of the Hebrews who were carried into the Babylo- 
nian captivity — a singular notion enough! — accompanied 
them in their peregrinations and won them by degrees. 

The Norwegian and Fin-Laplanders were provided 
with Christian instruction about the same time as their 
Swedish neighbours. At the commencement of the 
eighteenth century, Frederic IV. King of Denmark, 
caused the domestic and religious state of the tribes to 
be investigated, and then founded, in 1714, an institution 
expressly for the conversion of the heathen. But the 
inflexible perseverance of a private individual accom- 
plished more than that sovereign. Thomas ton Westen, 
a minister of the diocess of Dronvheim, whose parish lay 
contiguous to the chain of the Kiblian mountains, spon 



34 SURVEY OF CHUrSTIANITr. 

taneously relinquished his tranquil life, and went fortn 
among the heathen to proclaim the word of the Redeemer, 
Supported by the government, he erected churches and 
schools, and founded at Drontheim a seminary of future 
messengers of salvation. At his death, in 1 724, Finmark 
had already three churches, two meeting-houses, and two 
schools ; and Nordland two churches, twenty meeting- 
houses, and eighteen schools. There were also two 
schoolmasters and missionaries for the heathen in the 
province of Drontheim. 

Several churches and schools have been since built 
there. Lapland has at present thirteen principal and ten 
filial churches, and seven schools. Lutheran hymn-books r 
catechisms, edifying tracts, explanations of the gospels, 
and of the Bible alone three translations have been printed 
in the language of the people. The exertions of the 
Evangelical Society of Sweden, established at the com- 
mencement of the year 1>08, have been particularly me- 
ritorious ; and not less so those of the Swedish Bible 
Society of Stockholm, instituted in 1816. with its auxiliary 
societies at Gottenburg, Lund. Westeras, Wisbye, Skara, 
Wexio, and Nerike. It is required also that there shall 
constantly be twelve young men in training, at the expense 
of the king, for preachers among the Lap- Fins. 

The ancient northern paganism is far from being yet 
exterminated among these nomadic tribes, any more than 
among their neighbours, the northernmost Fins, who like 
them rove about in savage independence. Like the 
Swedish Bible Societies, however, those of Russia assi- 
duously exert themselves for the diffusion of the most an- 
cient records of Christianity among the Russian Lapland- 
ers and Fins. In 1815, nearly seven thousand Bibles 
were distributed among theiatter : and thus we may con- 
fidently anticipate, that there also the human mind will irt 
due time be elevated to its proper dignity. 



LAPLAND. 35 



CHAPTER IV, 

CONCLUSION. 

Rude as soil and climate may be under the polar circle, 
-still it is not to be doubted that Christianity, which refines 
the manners, purifies the feelings, expands the ideas, and 
opens to youth as it were a new world of conceptions, by 
means of the increased number of churches and schools, 
will here also manifest its beneficial effects, and even im- 
prove the state of the people in a civil point of view. 

The Fin-Laplander is, like all pastoral people, moun- 
taineers, and nomades, unappalled by the hardships which 
Nature lays upon him ; but averse to that labour which 
man voluntarily imposes on himself to better his condi- 
tion. He engages, therefore, in no sort of occupation to 
which he is not urged by necessity : more than that he 
regards as folly. To do nothing belongs to his higher 
pleasures. With this disposition to indolence, "and with 
the simplicity of his daily employments and social rela- 
tions, his mind sinks into a sort of lethargy. His usual 
•avocations scarcely need the effort of reflection. His 
herds of reindeer supply all his wants. Of these useful 
animals he has such an abundance, that he hardly takes 
the trouble to count those belonging to him. In times 
of dearth he helps himself out with fishing and the chase. 
The example of agricultural industry, set by German, 
Swedish, and Finland settlers, who we^re sent hither for 
the purpose, and to whom various privileges were granted 
for the promotion of agriculture and the rearing of cattle, 
proved insufficient to allure the Laplander from his old 
way of life. This example, it is true, was but rarely en- 
couraging, because these foreigners themselves were 
mostly poor and ignorant peasants. 

There are three ways by which a people may be roused 
into life and activity. Either communicate to it new kinds 
of wants, the satisfaction of which requires a greater ex- 



JU IT7BVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

crtion of its powers— this way is the corruption of man 
ncrs which in usually adopted by mercantile nations, to 
transform harmless, contented, independent tribes into 
slaves to the spirit of Commerce — or, hit men be awaken 

ed from their long slfipiber by some great and general ca- 
lamity, by a war, by the violent overthrow of ancient 
rights and institutions — who could recommend this horri- 
ble expedient 1 or let the minds of rising generations be 
excited to self-cultivation by an improved system of pub- 
lic instruction. 

A single new idea, penetrating the whole essence of a 
nation with convincing power, is sufficient to achieve the 
most extraordinary changes in its moral, domestic, and 
Social condition. And what idea can operate to this end 
with greater efficacy than that most sublime, most divine 
idea which Jesus promulgated ? This is proved by the 

history of nearly two thousand years. Where; ( Christianity 

fails to manifest this influence, we may be sure that H 
has lost its primitive purity, and degenerated into the 
mere 4 observance of church ceremonies, or into an empty 
profession of dogmatic subtleties and opinions 



PART THE SECOND. 



ASIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

REVIEW OF THE FIRST DIFFUSION AND SUBSEQUENT SUP- 
PRESSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA. 

Anterior to the migrations of nations, which spread 
barbarism over the face of the earth, Christianity had 
made not less progress in Asia than in Europe. So far as 
the sway of the Roman emperors extended, the Gospel 
alone was predominant : paganism was despised, nay, 
frequently persecuted with all the extravagance of pious 
rage. Throughout the whole of Asia Minor, far into the 
interior of Arabia, the word of Jesus was promulgated, 
In Armenia also, and even in Persia, numerous congre- 
gations gathered during the fourth century about the light 
of the better religion. The zeal of individuals for tread- 
ing in the steps of the first apostles of Jesus, and pro- 
claiming the true God in distant lands, was scarcely more 
conspicuous in Europe than in Asia. It is extremely proba- 
ble that Bar-Thomas, the Syrian, penetrated so early as the 
fifth century to Hindoostan and the coast of Malabar, 
and preached and baptized there. It is more certain still 
that, about a century later, hordes dwelling between the 
Caucasus and the Black Sea were converted by missions 
from Constantinople. 

The sect founded by Nestorius, patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, proved the most active of any in the diffu- 
sion of Christianity in Asia. This prelate, namely, had 
been engaged in a controversy with his adversary, Cyril- 

4 



38 SURVEY OF CHRISTIAKITV. 

lus, concerning the appellation of the "mother of God ?v 
given to the Virgin Mary, and on the question whe- 
ther two persons are united in a mysterious manner 
in Christ ; in which controversy the whole Christian 
church, or at least its teachers, soon became involved. 
IN either mild measures, nor force, nor imperial commands 
could reconcile the disputants. The Nestorians, who 
adhered to their notion of the union of two persons in 
Christ, God and man, were the more numerous in Asia. 
By their zeal for the conversion of the heathen, they in- 
creased in this part of the world the number of the pro- 
fessors of their faith, who were abhorred in the west. 
Nestorian Christians traversed Persia and the steppes of 
Tartary, and penetrated to China. In the eleventh cen- 
tury Nestorian Christian metropolitans and bishops were 
established in Little Bucharia, or Kashgar, in Turkestan, 
and even in the mountains of Tibet. Scarcely any doubt 
was entertained that in a few centuries all the nations and 
tribes of Asia would be imbued with and sanctified by the 
spirit of Jesus. 

These prospects were suddenly changed by the appear- 
ance of Muharned, the prophet of Mecca. Arabia 
yielded to his miracles, or to his agreeable doctrines, and 
to the success of his arms. Christianity was exterminated 
there, and not long afterwards in the adjacent countries. 
These triumphs of the enthusiastic professors of the Ko- 
ran seemed at once to demonstrate the favour of heaven 
and the truth of a religion which, flattering the feelings of 
the ardent, barbarous Orientals, combined a grand sys- 
tem of morality with simplicity of religious doctrines, and 
confidence in the irrevocable decrees of the Supreme 
Being with military glory and the pleasures of life. This 
took place while the Christianity of those countries and 
times presented little else than church ceremonies, scho- 
lastic subtleties, and sophistical opinions of the commen- 
tators on the Scriptures. The spirit of the Saviour was 
forgotten in the dispute concerning the nature of his per- 
son. The irreconcileable animosity of the parties facili- 
tated the progress of the Saracens, and each of them ra- 
ther exulted in the fall of fellow-christian antagonists, than 
trembled at the triumphs of the infidel Arabs. The Nes- 



ASIA. 39 

torians, indeed, were suspected, not without reason, of 
traitorous co-operation, since the caliphs Abubekr, Omar, 
and Othman, subdued, with such wonderful rapidity, 
Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, together with Jerusalem, all 
Asia Minor, and even Persia, and compelled them to 
embrace the religion of their Prophet. But the downfal 
of the Greek empire and of Christianity was promoted in 
a much greater degree by the imbecility of the emperors 
at Constantinople, than by the hatred of the Nestorians. 
The prodigious efforts of Europe in the Crusades could 
not save either. 

The Nestorian Church, nevertheless, flourished long 
afterwards in the interior of Asia. It was known in the 
elevated plains of Tartary ; it was known in Hindoostan, 
and at the Court of the Mogul himself; and China con- 
tained, down to the thirteenth century, many Christian 
congregations. Such was the consequence which Nes- 
tor's disciples possessed, or were thought, to possess, that 
three popes sent ambassadors to induce them to unite 
with the western church. Joannes a Monte Corvino like- 
wise prepared for them a Tartar translation of the Psalms 
and books of the New Testament. It was certainly a 
subject of just regret, that the Nestorian Christians had 
not, during the period of their prosperity, succeeded in 
converting to Christianity, in Turkestan and in the steppes 
of Khorasan an d Bokhara, a nation which soon filled all 
Asia with terror by its victories. 

This nation was that of the Turks. These people, 
who soon became the destroyers of the Arabian caliphat, 
reduced Persia and Asia Minor under their authority, and 
menaced Europe, had embraced the doctrine of Muhamed, 
and, with greater intolerance than the Arabs themselves, 
made the Christians of all countries the objects of their 
mortal hatred. Through them the extent and influence 
of the Nestorians were greatly diminished, especially in 
western Asia. In the territories of the Mongols they 
were more firmly established : nay, when these, under 
the conduct of their mighty Jenghis Khan and his suc- 
cessors, extended in the thirteenth century their sway 
from the frontiers of China to Syria, and still farther, the 
victories of the ferocious barbarians seemed to be at the 



40 SURVEY 0^ CHRISTIANITY. 

same time victories for Christianity. It is even asserted 
that Mangoo, the grandson of Jenghis Khan, was a Chris- 
tian — he who reduced Bagdad, and, crossing the Eu- 
phrates, shpok Asia Minor and Syria. 

But all these were soon crushed by a still more mighty 
hand. In the interior of Tartary, in Jagatai, which bor- 
ders on Persia, China, and India, arose one of the Emirs, 
Timurlenk, and became a second Jenghis Khan. In the 
career of his successes he destroyed a whole series of 
ancient and modern thrones, and, as a zealous follower 
of his Arabian prophet, overthrew all the temples and 
altars of the Christians. So terribly did he complete his 
work, that in the fifteenth century scarcely any vestiges 
of Nestorian Christians remained in Central and Upper 
Asia. Besides the ancient paganism of the deserts, the 
religions of Muhamed, Lama, and Brahma, were alone 
predominant. China only still displayed insignificant and 
despised relics of the ancient prosperity of the Nestorians. 
The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, founded at the 
conclusion of the eleventh century by the enthusiastic 
valour of the European Crusaciers, had long ceased to 
exist. The profess6rs of the Gospel lived dispersed and 
contemned in the countries of Armenia, Syria, and Asia 
Minor, under the Turkish dominion, which soon extend- 
ed itself over Constantinople and Greece, and even to 
the Lower Danube towards the interior of Europe. 



CHAPTER II. 

STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN SECTS IN TURKEY IN ASIA 

CATHOLICS, GREEKS, MARONITES, &C. THEIR BAR- 
BARISM. 

A tract of more than three hundred and sixty thousand 
square miles in Western Asia is still subject to the Grand 
Signor of Constantinople. Out of the eleven or twelve 
millions of souls inhabiting these countries under Turkish 



TURKEY IN ASIA. 41 

supremacy, there are scarcely two millions of Christians. 
They are treated by the Turks with profound contempt, 
but experience more liberal toleration than the Protesants 
in Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic countries, or than 
the Catholics in many oT the Protestant states in Europe. 
But, as in Europe so in Asia, the different Christian commu- 
nions render themselves despicable by their mutual hatred, 
and ridiculous by their zeal for the conversion of each 
other. It is no uncommon thing, as we are informed by 
recent travellers, that the Turkish sentinels at the holy se- 
pulchre in Jerusalem are obliged to have recourse to force 
to keep order among the Christian devotees, when the 
latter, full of jealous zeal, come to blows with one another, 
and the i\estorian Christian taunts the Catholic, or the 
Catholic the Greek. 

Under the protection of the Grand Signor the Catho- 
lics have, in Asia Minor, and especially in the Holy Land, 
several scattered congregations and convents, which, as 
well as the Catholics of European and African Turkey, 
are under the ecclesiastical superintendence of tei» bishops 
and two archbishops. Most of the Catholic attempts 
at conversion have hitherto been directed from Mesopota- 
mia, Bagdad, and Bassora, to Syria and Chaldaea. The 
Catholic worship is performed with the same freedom in 
the heart of the mountains of Syria as in Rome itself: 
but in the former, the manners of its professors are more 
simple and more pure. The Syrian monks are neither 
very rigid nor great divines ; but they give simple rules 
and strictly follow them. The secular clergy are not dis- 
tinguished either for rank or theological knowledge, but 
they are pious and respected. They know no other guide 
but the Gospel. They live in poverty and support their 
families by the labour of their hands. , How different this 
state of things from that at Rome ! The number of 
these Christians is as little known as that of the Nesto- 
rians and Jacobites, who live round about as far as Arabia 
and Persia, and who for a thousand years past have been 
at variance concerning the natures and wills in Christ, and 
also about certain ceremonies of divine worship. The 
patriarch of the Nestorian Christians, whose dignity is 
hereditary, resides at Coch-Hames, in the mountains of 

4* 



42 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

northern Kurdistan. More like the leader of a military 
clan than the prelate of a religious community, he exercises 
the power of life and death over his flock. 

The patriarch of the Syrian Jacobites, who has under 
him twenty-one bishoprics, lives in the convent of Der- 
Zaaferan, about fifteen miles from the city of Mardin in 
Mesopotamia. These Jacobites, like their priests, are 
rude and ignorant. The bishop of Hkesn, situate on the 
Tigris between Mardin and Jezira, is one of the most 
noted robbers of his horde. He even takes his gun with 
him to the altar while he performs divine service. 

The Maronites are more numerous, especially in the 
mountains of Kesroan, a branch of the Lebanon. Their 
many parishes — they amount to about two hundred- 
extend through Syria beyond Aleppo and Damascus. At 
Damascus itself, indeed, the Christians appear more like 
slaves than free men, owing no less to their own pusilla- 
nimity than to the arrogance of the Turks. They may be 
recognised in the streets, as a modern traveller assures us, 
by their abject cringing manner. Their priests, espe- 
cially in the mountains, are poor ; they are allowed to 
marry, but must take virgins only to wife. Few of them 
remain single, to the great satisfaction of their parish- 
ioners. Divine service is held in the Syrian language ; but 
the gospels and prayers are read in Arabic. The Ma- 
ronites, in the low country and in the mountains, are of 
more noble and independent principles than those in the 
towns, upright in their conduct, innocent, and often dread- 
fully severe in their manners. The women there are not 
so closely veiled as in the cities ; but an unmarried female 
who proves pregnant atones for her indiscretion with her 
life, which is taken by the hand of her own parents ; and 
a mother deems herself dishonoured when her son-in-law 
fails to produce evidence of her daughter's chastity the 
day after their nuptials. Thus do the Maronites render 
themselves respected, particularly by the Druses. Tribu- 
tary to the Emirs of the latter, they are sometimes their 
principal and most trusty servants. The Maronite Chris- 
tians, too, are continually increasing under the Druses. It 
is even asserted that Ubschir, Emir of the Druses, (in the 
year 1811) was a Christian, at least in his heart. The 



TURKEY IN ASIA. 43 

Catholics regard the Maronites as brethren, because they 
consider the pope as their head, and the latter confirms 
the patriarch, whom they themselves elect. In the year 
1818, Giarve, the archbishop (since elected patriarch) of 
Jerusalem, appeared at the feet of his Holiness at Rome, 
and obtained from the King of France Syrian types and 
printing-presses for his convent en Lebanon. Thus, too, 
many of the dispersed relics of the Nestorian church are 
for the like reason considered as good Catholics. 

The Armenian and still more the Greek Christians are 
dispersed in the greatest numbers through the Turkish 
empire in Asia. The head of the ancient Armenian 
church, however, resides not in the Turkish, but in the 
Persian dominions, at the convent of Idschmiassin, or 
u The Descent of the Incarnate," in Erivan. There the 
patriarch bears the appellation of Hugas Kathaltos, that 
is, Emperor of the Elect, and in holy supremacy of power 
dispenses his commands to the archbishops of the Arme- 
nian church at Ajas, in Caramania, at Agtomar, on the 
salt lake of Wan, in Turcomania, and at Constantinople, 
as well as to the many suffragan bishops and abbots in 
Syria and the re^t of Asia Minor. The head of the Ca- 
tholic-Armenian religion resides at Constantinople, of the 
Catholic-Syrian on Mount Lebanon, and of the Catholic- 
Chaldaean at Diarbekir. The church of the latter, how- 
ever, is in a most deplorable decline. 

The head of the Greek church, on the other hand, or 
at least of that branch of it which is under the Turkish 
dominion, resides at Constantinople, as archbishop of 
Stambul, and oecumenic patriarch over the patriarchs of 
Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, more than twenty 
metropolitans and as many archbishops, one hundred and 
twenty despots, or bishops, and innumerable archiman- 
drites, igurnens, popes, deacons, &c. 

The Turkish empire is not wholly destitute of Pro- 
testant congregations, but their number is very small. Not 
only at Constantinople, but even in the heart of Syria, at 
Aleppo, are to be found churches and schools of Cal- 
vinists and Lutherans. 

Attempts of the Christians at conversion, if they pre- 
sume to direct them against professors of the Koran, are 
attended with great danger ; hence they are but faint, 



14 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY 

nay, scarcely perceptible. The Gospel indeed is preached 
to the Jews, but without much fruit. The mission for 
the conversion of the Muhamedans, which Professor Cal^ 
lenberg, of Halle, assisted to found in the first half of the 
last century, extended its operations with extreme caution 
towards Asia Minor. All that was done consisted in the 
distribution of some thousand copies of a translation of 
the New Testament, or the shorter Catechism of Luther, 
in Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo ; and to little more 
than this are the efforts of the British and ixussian Bible 
Societies at present limited. 

The press of the Missionary Society at Malta is very 
actively engaged, it is true, in printing portions of the 
Scriptures and tracts in Greek, Arabic, and Italian — 
among the rest a monthly publication, " The Friend of 
Man," begun in January, 1826- -which are circulated in 
the Ionian Islands and Gree< e, at Constantinople and 
Smyrna, and in Syria and Egypt. 

Perhaps no greater service could be rendered to the 
Christian churches in Asiatic Turkey than to begin by 
converting these then) selves to Christianity : for by far 
the greater^ 1 part of the Christians there of all communions 
live in a state of ignorance and moral depravity. Priests 
as well as laity are mostly sunk in the mire of a supersti- 
tion which they term religion. The very Turks fre- 
quently appear more noble, more rational, more religious, 
than they. The picture of the Greeks given by Meyer 
of Arbon,* one of the latest, most upright, and most in- 
telligent, of travellers, serve to convince us that the Turks 
cannot help feeling more and more abhorrence for Chris- 
tianity, when they have daily before their eyes the atro- 
cious depravity of those who call themselves Christians. 

The monks in Asiatic Turkey live chiefly by the stupid 
credulity of the laity, and those at Jerusalem in particular 
by the devotion of eastern and western pilgrims. The 
convent of the Holy Sepulchre alone sells relics, rosaries^ 
agnus-deis, crucifixes, and amulets, of all sorts, to the 
amount of fifty thousand piastres per annum. Several 
hundred chests of such articles are annually sent off to 

* His travels are published in the German language, with the title of 
Schicksale eines Schweizers loahrend seiner Reise nach Jerusalem. 
&c— St, Gall, 1815, 3 vols. 



TURKEY IN ASIA. w 4a 

great distances around ; and even Muhamedan families 
subsist by the manufacture of them for convents. The 
scenes exhibited on Palm-Sunday at Jerusalem, when 
men, women, and children, all plunge publicly stark-naked 
into the Jordan ; or those on Easter Eve, when Greeks, 
Armenians, and Catholics, run, leap, and crawl, like ma- 
niacs, round the holy ^sepulchre, with shouts of Huja ! or 
rush furiously to the grave for the purpose of there lighting 
their tapers at the fire which has descended from heaven, 
cannot but excite in the Turks the utmost contempt for 
Christianity. 

In Syria and in the greater part of Asia Minor, the pro- 
fessors of the religion of Jesus, and especially the Greeks 
and Armenians, are deemed the most depraved and de- 
ceitful of men. They have themselves in general a much 
higher opinion of Muhamedans than of one another, and 
particularly of those who. perform frequent pilgrimages 
to Jerusalem and other places of devotion. On the latter 
point they coincide with the followers of Muhamed. who, 
though they consider a visit to Mecca as meritorious, 
nevertheless have this saying : kfc Beware of thy neighbour 
if he has been at Mecca ; and if he has been twice there, 
sell thy house and move out of his way." 

The distribution of Turkish, Armenian, Syriac, and 
Arabic, translations of the Bible may possibly contribute 
to the regeneration of Christianity in those countries. Cy- 
rillus.thececumenic patriarch and archbishop of Constan- 
tinople, in 1814, granted at least his patriarchal permission 
for the circulation of the Scriptures among the Greeks. 

The cause of Christianity in Turkey seems, however, 
to have suffered by the insurrection of the Greeks against 
their Muhamedan masters, and the murder, in 1821, of 
the patriarch Gregory and other Greek ecclesiastics, in 
Constantinople and various parts of the dominions of the 
Grand Signor. The zeal of this patriarch in the dissemi- 
nation of scriptural knowledge, encouraged by the agents 
of the British Bible Society, was a permanent and grow- 
ing principle, and it was particularly manifested in his 
patronage of the undertaking of Hilarion, the archiman- 
drite of his church, to give to his countrymen an accept- 
able version of the Scriptures, and of the other transla 



46 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lions of the Bible in progress at Constantinople at the 
time of his death. The hopes of Christians kindled by 
the prospects held forth by the co-operation of this prelate, 
are, indeed, damped by these and other untoward circum- 
stances ; but we cannot doubt that the sacred work of 
diffusing the light of the Gospel in this semi-barbarian 
portion of Europe, though delayed, will be eventually 
accomplished. 

The state of the Greek church itself presents one of 
the greatest obstacles to this desirable consummation ; 
for there are even bishops and archbishops who have 
hitherto known nothing of the sacred books of Christen- 
dom, or perhaps no more than the contents of the four 
Gospels Still more ignorant were the other Greeks and 
Armenians respecting the written sources of their faith. 
It is to be lamented thai these people have very few good 
schools ; and though they may have learned to read, very 
seldom fee! any inclination for reading This they leave 
to their clergy, and the latter care much more for the 
gifts and offerings which are made to them, than about 
the piety of the flocks committed to their charge. It 
is well known that the patriarch of Constantinople pur- 
chases of the sultan, at the price of one hundred thou- 
sand piastres, his Christian dignity, which confers on him 
the rank of a pacha of two tails, and that he is obliged to 
devise means of bringing that sum back again into the 
sacred exchequer 

The influence possessed by the Roman Catholics seems 
to be another powerful obstacle to the dissemination of 
the truths of Christianity in the Turkish dominions. To 
that influence is ascribed the hostility lately manifested by 
the government to the efforts of Protestant missionaries 
and to the circulation of the Scriptures, which was ex- 
pressly prohibited by a firman of the Grand Signor's 
issued in 1824, on the ground of their being false books, 
and which commands that all such books as have been 
lately introduced from Europe shall be forcibly taken from 
their owners and burnt. The Romish vicar-apostolical 
in the patriarchate of Constantinople, seconding this 
measure, in a circular dated May, 1826, and addressed 
to the Christians of his church, threatens with excommii- 



TURKEY IN ASIA. 47 

mcation all who are in possession of biblical works pro- 
hibited by the pope, and shall not within eight days sur- 
render them " to be consigned to the flames merited by 
such infected and pestilential books, which deprave and 
corrupt the world." This anathema was especially called 
forth by the circulation of various publications in Greek 
and Italian, issued from the Church Mission press at 
Malta, and sent to Constantinople. The firman of the 
sultan has been made the plea for breaking up several 
flourishing Christian schools, burning hundreds of copies 
of the Bible, and imprisoning and otherwise punishing 
those with whom this book has been found. 

A communication signed by missionaries of different 
societies, labouring amidst the dangers arising from Turk- 
ish oppression, excited by Romish bribery and intrigue, 
contains these observations, which deserve the serious at- 
tention of the British government : " The treaty between 
Great Britain and the Porte professes to place England 
on the footing of the most favoured nation. Where is this 
impartiality, so solemnly pledged ? Other nations are al- 
lowed to send hither hundreds of missionaries and whole edi- 
tions of really false books, to erect here convent after con- 
vent, and to receive native Christians under their religious 
instruction. For hundreds of years have other nations 
gone on with this work, with little or no complaints from 
government ; but the moment such liberty is taken by 
*he English nation, and in the most inoffensive and un- 
objectionable form — that of distributing among Chris- 
tians their own sacred books — immediately a public order 
is issued to prevent this w T ork. We see not why this is 
not really and properly a violation of treaty ; as truly so 
as it would be to burn all the Romish books, to shut up 
all the convents of the Terra Santa establishment, or to 
expel all the Latin missionaries from the country. 

u If proper representations are made on this subject 
in the right quarter, we have strong hopes that the results 
would be a formal repeal of the obnoxious firman, express 
permission to English missionaries to reside in the coun- 
try, in their own proper character, leave to distribute 
Bibles and to erect churches like other nations, and a full 
security against violence to the persons and property of 



48 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

those who might choose to assemble and unite with them 
in worship." 

The public events which have recently taken place in 
these parts, and more especially the battle of Navarin, 
however they may indispose the Turks to favour English- 
men, can scarcely fail to add weight to any proper inter- 
ference in behalf of our countrymen, or of any Christians 
in connexion with them. Meanwhile the press is pour-^ 
ing forth the Scriptures and Christian books, which make 
their way in spite of opposition ; and Malta, by the pro* 
ductions of her able and devoted labourers, is fulfilling a 
far higher and nobler destiny than merely as a great out- 
work of her country. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PAGANISM OF SIBERIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATES- 
DEFECTIVE INSTITUTIONS FOR CONVERSION — CONVENT- 
UAL SCHOOLS MISSIONS- 

The vast north of Asia, subject to the Russian sceptre, 
contains a superficial area of more than four millions of 
square miles, a space so extensive that it would admii 
within its limits the whole of Europe were it half as large 
again as it is. This immense tract, inhabited by many 
heathen nations, which are living in a state of primitive 
barbarism, and which scarcely number nine millions of 
souls, is for the most part a dreary desert ; full of steppes, 
extending farther than the eye can reach, and the salt soil 
of which is not embellished by a single tree ; or moors 
and endless forests, into the heart of which mortal has 
scarcely ever penetrated. The wilderness becomes still 
more dead and dreary at every step towards the polar 
circle, where the soil is more and more unsusceptible of 
cultivation, till at length man and beast succumb beneath 
the inclement sky in the unequal conflict with Nature. 
It is not an uncommon circumstance for snow to fall in 



SIBERIA AND THE RUSSIAN STATES. 49 

the summer months in Siberia ; and in the winters of 
Nertschinsk and Tobolsk, quicksilver is congealed into 
so hard a mass that it may be hammered out into leaves. 

The greater part of the tribes, rude and independent, 
lead a roving life, under moveable tents and jurts, in caves 
and subterraneous houses, engaged in rapine, the breed- 
ing of cattle, hunting, and fishing. Many, overwhelmed 
by cares'for the preservation of life, without any. notion 
of a better state, brood in sullen stupidity over the means 
of prolonging their wretched existence ; following, like 
the brute beast, only the first instincts of Nature. Others 
have indeed elevated themselves to religious conceptions, 
or have inherited them from their ancestors ; but these 
conceptions are crude and scanty, like their mode of 
life — a paganism which may be termed the abortion of 
the most uncultivated understanding. Others again 
bear, it is true, the signs of Christianity and baptismal 
names, but without having the most obscure notion of the 
religion of Christians. They are still heathen, attached 
to the gods of their forefathers, and such they will long 
remain. In the more recent enumerations, there were 
found to be about a million of fire and fetish worship- 
pers, besides about three hundred thousand subjects of 
the Lama religion, in addition to the professors of the 
JKoran, about three millions of whom inhabit the Asiatic 
dominions of Russia. 

In the course of the eighteenth century, various attempts 
were made to propagate Christianity through the Tartaries 
and the deserts of Siberia. Very few of them were pro- 
ductive of benefit ; but, on the other hand, very few were 
conducted with prudence and in a purely Christian spirit. 
Philophei, Greek archbishop of Tobolsk, at the commence* 
ment of the eighteenth century, sent several of his clergy 
to the Mongol tribes and their kutuchtes, or Lama high- 
priests, but without success. Full of pious zeal, he at 
length went himself, in the year 1712, to the Ostiaks, who 
live by hunting, fowling, and fishing, in the wilds along the 
Obi. He took with him priests and Russian soldiers. 
He entered the jurts of the timid people ; attacked their 
Shamans, or sorcerers ; burned their household-gods,, 
rudely carved wooden dolls, clothed in rags ; overthrew ; 

5 



50 SUHVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

the sacred trees; forbade polygamy and the eating of 
horse-flesh ; enjoined the observance of the Greek fasts 
and the wearing of the cross ; and was at the same time 
assiduous in baptizing. He frequently ordered his mili- 
tary attendants to drive large bodies of the refractory into 
the water, where they then received baptism, whether 
they would or not. 

In other parts, attempts at conversion were conducted 
in nearly the same manner, among the indolent and eflemi* 
nate Buraits, who inhabit the country from the Jenesei 
to the frontiers of China, dwell in felt huts, and worship 
Oktorgon Burchan, the good spirit, and Okodol, the evil 
one, besides heavenly bodies and household deities; — 
among the Wogules along the northern Ural mountains, 
who are addicted to the chase, and who invoke particular 
deities preparatory to particular occupations ; among the 
Tungusians, Wotyaiks, &c. It seemed, therefore, not at 
all incredible, when Theodore, metropolitan of Tobolsk, 
announced with exultation, in the year 1721, the baptism 
of more than forty thousand Tartars, and their conversion 
completed in a very short time : or when the College 
De Propaganda Fide acquainted the sacred synod of Pe- 
tersburg with the conversion of 295,679 souls among the 
Wotyaiks,Tchuwashes,Tcheremisses, and Mord wines, in a 
series of eight years, from 1 740 to 1 747. Rapid progress 
was also made in baptizing the Calmucks, through the zeal 
of Nicodemus Lenkeiawitz, archimandrite of Astracan, 
especially since Mursa Tenishkow, in 1732, and even 
Dshan, the female Khan of the Calrnucks, in 1 744, thought 
fit to accept the bath of regeneration, for which their 
god-mother, the Empress Elizabeth, made them valuable 
presents, and conferred on them the princely rank. 

It is scarcely necessary to add a single remark on the 
spirit of those Russian apostles and their proselytes, and 
on the Christianity of both. The travels of a Gmelin, 
a, Pallas, and more recent writers, furnish no very pleas- 
ing accounts of the Christianity of the Fins, Tartars, 
and Mongols. From them we learn that it was mostly 
hordes, living in abject poverty and want, which submit- 
ted to baptism in the hope of gain ; and that they were 
no better Christians for their conversion, as it was called* 



SIBERIA AND THE BUSSIAff STATES. 51 

<han they had been before. The utmost they did, in 
order to ingratiate themselves with the Russians, was to 
adopt a few of the usages of the Greek church, and 
punctually celebrate its festivals, because they were sup- 
plied on such occasions with beer or brandy, wherewith 
to intoxicate themselves. The more wealthy nations, on 
the contrary, the Tungusians, who possess numerous 
herds, the Beltires, &c, adhered stedfastly to the gods 
of their country and the usages of their ancestors. The 
migrations of many of the Calmucks to the Chinese ter- 
ritory are even said to have been a consequence of the 
indignation of these Mongols against the Russian clergy 
and their armed deacons, since the Lama Priests account- 
ed to the people in the following manner for the zeal ma- 
nifested by the Russians for their conversion : — " The 
Russian God wants money, the Russian governor bread, 
the Russian czar recruits : this is the reason why you are 
to become Christians and to till the ground like slaves." 

Under the impress Catherine II. milder and more pru- 
dent measures were adopted. A particularly judicious 
step was the foundation of seminaries for the education of 
boys beJo&ging to the Teh u washes, Tcheremisses, Mord- 
wines, Calmucks, and other Tartar and Mongol tribes, 
who were afterwards to be employed as teachers and 
priests among their roving countrymen. Similar institu- 
tions were established at Irkutzk, Kasan, and other places; 
and the Jesuits also sent forth missionaries into the desert 
steppes. 

Of the harvest produced by the sacred seed which they 
sowed very little is known. We may, nevertheless, fairly 
presume that all their pains were not thrown away ; they 
were at least a preparation to something better. How, 
indeed, can we hope to perceive important results from 
the zeal of individuals who are lost like minute points in 
the immensity of space, among such a multitude of differ- 
ent tribes — tribes which often live completely dispersed, 
without permanent abodes, and which are still destitute of 
the first preliminary, moral cultivation ! The religious 
notions of nations are always in the same ratio with their 
other notions. Hence we stiil find in the interior of Asia 
/descendants of ancient Christians — as the Awchases, in 



&2 StTRVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Russian Georgia, or among the Lesgi, in whose valleys 
and mountains, along the river Koisu, may still be disco- 
vered unequivocal relics or the Avares and Huns — who 
know nothing of Christian rites beyond the observance of 
Sunday and the long fasts of the Greek church. Thus, 
too, we meet with Muhamedan tribes, who know scarcely 
any thing of the Koran of their Prophet, excepting cir- 
cumcision and abstinence from swine's flesh and strong 
liquors. * Jewish Tartars are also to be seen — for instance, 
in the Kiianat of Kuba — who have retained but little of the 
law of Moses. They are downright heathen, like the 
rest — like the Mongols, in the sandy plains of Chilgontui, 
in which stands their most celebrated datsan* or temple, 
according to whom the sialactitic caves in the lofty moun- 
tains of Uda are the abodes of the spirits, both good and 
evil. 

Ages must elapse before all these tribes of northern 
and central Asia, many of whom are yet but little known, 
attain a higher degree of general civilization. The very 
nature of their climate, and the mode of life resulting 
from it, operate as obstructions. The principal means 
for accomplishing this desirable end must be furnished by 
Russia in Europe ; but even that country is still far be- 
hind the other nations of our quarter of the globe. 

Hence the Emperor Alexander deserved the especial 
gratitude of all the friends of mankind by his efforts for 
the improvement of the system of education. His admi- 
rable ukase relative to the ecclesiastical or conventual 
schools is well known ; still there are in the whole empire 
scarcely sixty of these institutions, which alone require 
an expenditure of three hundred and sixty thousand rubles 
for their support. In the year 1814, there were twenty 
thousand scholars and two hundred and ninety -seven teach- 
ers in the higher class of these schools, thirty-six in num- 
ber, which are called seminaries, and differ from the 
eighteen lower, which limit their instruction to the Chris- 
tian religion, writing, and arithmetic. In the ecclesias- 
tical academies at Kioff, Moscow, Alexandroff, and Ka- 
san, there were at the same time four thousand pupils 
and fifty teachers. 

In addition to these efforts, the Russian Bible Socie- 



■ # 

61BEWA AND THE RUSSIAtf STATUS. 83 

ties deserve great credit for the circulation of the sacre4 
scriptures in the Russian, Armenian, Cahnuck, Grusian, 
Persian, and other languages ♦ and the missions establish/- 
ed in 1790 by the Edinburgh Missionary Society are not 
less meritorious. It is remarkable that at the present day, 
as some centuries since, in the middle ages, Britain has 
doue most to animate the zeal for the conversion of the 
heathen, as well as furnished the greatest number of mis- 
sionaries for the good work ; for it has not fewer than 
twelve different extensive societies, actively engaged in 
the diffusion of Christianity. 

So far back as the year 1 803, two British ministers, 
Henry Brunton and Alexander Paterson, accompanied 
by a young African, named Harrison, were despatched 
by the Scottish Missionary Society to Russia, to preach 
the Gospel of Jesus in Tartary. They received cordial 
encouragement from the government, proceeded to As- 
4racan, and thence to Karass, a Tartar village, at the 
foot of the Caucasian mountains, a few days' journey 
from the Persian, Bokharian, and Turkish frontiers, and 
nearly equidistant from the Black and Caspian Seas.— - 
There they settled in the vicinity of the predatory hordes ; 
but Brunton alone remained at that spot, where he was, 
however, assisted in this work by five more of his coun- 
trymen, mostly artisans. Here they translated- the new 
Testament into Tartar and printed it themselves ; and 
purchased captive children and instructed them in the 
Tartar and English languages. They were several times 
obliged to leave Karass and seek refuge in the fortified 
town of Georgiewsk, about thirty miles distant, or in the 
Russian castle of Constantinogorski. Sometimes it was 
the plague which drove them away, at others hostile incur- 
sions of the Tartars, against which neither the ramparts 
and palisades of their settlement, nor the protection of 
Russian Cossacks, were a sufficient defence. Undaunted 
by these annoyances they nevertheless returned invariably 
to their former residence, where dwelt besides them about 
thirty German families and some baptized Tcherkesses 
and Tartars. A few days after the battle of Leipzig, the 
Emperor Alexander secured to them all more effectual 
nrotection for the future, by a ukase -addressed lathe 

A* 



54 SVRVEY OP CHRISTIANfTV. 

commander-in-chief in Georgia. Agreeably to his wishes 
also, two of the missionaries, John Mitchell and Charles 
Frazer, repaired to Orenburg, to found a new settlement 
On the Ural, for the conversion of the nomadic Tartars 
and Muhamedans. It appears, however, from the last 
reports of the Scottish Missionary Society, that its direct- 
ors have relinquished the mission in Astracan, and are in 
negotiation for the transfer of the colony of Karass to the 
Basle Evangelical Society, which is anxious to have such 
an establishment for the basis of its missionary operations 
in the Russian empire. 

All these and other efforts for the civilization and pro- 
pagation of Christianity in Asiatic Russia proceed but 
slowly, and in continual warfare with the impediments 
thrown in their way by the nature of the climate and the 
people. Even the old establishments of the United 
Brethren on the Sarpa, where, in the year 1765, they 
founded Sarepta, have produced much less fruit than was 
at first expected. The Europeans who have been removed 
thither, vanquished by the climate, at length become 
more like Asiatics in habits and manners than the Asiatics 
like Europeans. The destruction of Sarepta, by fire, 
in 1812, proved a great check to the then commencing 
prosperity of the colony. 

The missionaries had already begun to despair of being 
able ever to gain over the Calmuck hordes to the Gospel. 
The congregation of the Brethren at Astracan, where 
they had also instituted a school expressly for Calmuck 
children, did not however relinquish the pious design) 
and, in the spring of 1815, two missionaries, Gottfried 
Schill and Christian Hiibner, again proceeded from Sarepta 
to the steppes of the Calmucks. 

Astracan, a considerable town, with seventy thousand 
inhabitants, situaled on an island at the mouths of the 
Wolga, was selected by the Moravian brethren on account 
of its peculiar position for the centre of their missions : 
because it affords greater facilities than any other place 
for operations in Siberia, Tartary, Persia, and Turkey, 
from which countries travellers of all classes are continue 
ally arriving at Astracan. Little, however, has been 
hitherto achieved. In 1815 the Edinburgh Missionary So* 



SIBERIA AND THE HUSSIAtf STATES. 55 

ciety sent two of their most zealous colleagues to renew 
the work of conversion. The rudeness of the climate, 
country, and inhabitants, and their dispersed state and 
wandering life have proved permanent obstructions to all 
these philanthropic undertakings. 

JN early the same may be said of the numerous settle- 
ments of Europeans along the banks of the Kuma and its 
tributary streams, in the Caucasian countries, founded 
since 1781 by emigrants from Germany, France, the Ne- 
therlands, and Switzerland. These settlements at present 
amount to fifty three ; and there are upwards of one hun- 
dred more, likewise inhabited by Europeans, in the plains 
bordering on the Wolga. The latter were established 
after the seven years' war ; and they have since increased 
amazingly in population, in spite of the unfavourable na- 
ture of soil and climate, For, in these dreary plains, 
where neither wood, nor mountain, nor hill, is to be seen 
for a great distance round — where horse and cow-dung are 
the only sort of fuel that can be procured — where the few 
fruit trees that have been introduced are destroyed by the 
frost in winter, while the heat of summer is frequently 
suffocating — in these parts dwell, nevertheless, , about 
fifty thousand families of European emigrants, or their 
descendants, who, indeed, can all support themselves by 
the crops which they rear, but have no prospect of ever 
attainirig a higher degree of prosperity. 

Since the year 1816, Irkutzk, in the interior of Siberia, 
has been a new point for the benevolent missionary institu- 
tions of England. This town may be considered as the 
staple of the traffic between Russia and China, and it 
is still in a great measure inhabited by professors of 
Lamaism. Greek Christians, however, and many Muha- 
medans, also reside there. Of the neighbouring tribes, 
the Buraits, of Mongol extraction, and resembling the 
Calmucks in their language, are the most considerable, 
or perhaps rather the Mantchoo Tartars, but these are 
under Chinese, not Russian dominion. 

Three missionaries of the London Missionary Society 
have been some years stationed at Selinginsk, about 160 
miles from Irkutzk, where the Emperor Alexander, at the 
instance of Prince Galitzin, granted to the mission a plot 



SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 






of land of 112 acres, and 70u0 rubles for defraying thfc 
expense of buildings. A printing prest> has been esta- 
blished there for printing in Mongolian a trasiation ot the 
Bible, preparing by the missionaries at the expense of the 
Bible Society of Petersburg. One of them is employed 
Upon a Mongolian dictionary and grammar ; and they 
Jiave opened schools for the children of either sex. 

From this station the missionaries have performed seve- 
ral journeys into the country of the Chormsky Buraita, 
and extended their excursions beyond the I\ertsehmsk 
mountains, considerably to the eastward of feelinginsk, 
and the extremity in that direction of the region inhabited 
by the Buraits. From their report ot the state ot these 
people we learn, that it is in some important respects 
more favourable for missionary exertions than that ot the 
tribes scattered round Selinginsk. iNot only is the amount 
of the population of the former greater than that of the 
latter, but the proportion of temples and lamas is consi- 
derably less. Many of the Chorinskys are, moreover, 
fluctuating between two rival superstitions, Shamanism^ 
the less objectionable of the two., appears to be on the 
decline^ and many of the Buraits have renounced it in 
favour of Dalai-Lamaism. The lamas ol the latter sect 
Jire employing all their influence to destroy Shamanism ; 
and some of their missionaries have been carried by their 
zeal to the unlettered tribes in the neighbourhood of 
1-rkutzk, where they are erecting temples, and endeavour- 
ing to prepare the way for the introduction of their religion 
in regions where it has been hitherto unknown. It is 
confidently hoped that the mental excitement thus pro- 
duced may ultimately prove favourable to the cause of 
Christianity in this quarter. 

The extensive district round Nertchinsk is inhabited by 
the Tungusians, a people who have no written language of 
their own. Their intercourse with their neighbours, the 
Chorinsky Buraits, has however proved the means of sup- 
plying in some measure this deficiency. The Buraits 
have from time to time introduced among the Tungusians 
books relating to their superstitions, written in the Mori 
golian language, which the latter are at length able to 
read and understand. Thus has an opening been ma# 



SIBERIA AND THE HUSSIAN STATES. 57 

by the Buraits themselves for the dissemination of the 
Christian faith among the Tungusians, who will now be 
capable of reading the copies of the Mongolian Scrip- 
tures circulated among that tribe, which otherwise, from 
their ignorance of letters, would have been to them a 
sealed book. 

The culture of Asiatic Russia is in truth impracticable,, 
unless attempted by the industry of European hands. So 
long as the unsettled spirit of the original inhabitants is 
not tamed by schools and refined by Christianity, an inti- 
mate intermixture of the settlers and barbarians is totally 
impracticable. Separated from one another, the same 
kind of enmity will continue to prevail between them as 
between the European colonies and the independent 
savages in America. Diversity of religions i3 a much 
greater impediment to the union of nations than diversity 
of languages ; since it is easier for men to exchange their 
language for another, than their conviction or dispo- 
sition. 

The civilization of the Asiatic nations subject to the 
Russian sceptre will be more readily begun and accom- 
plished in the milder regions than in the more inclement 
northern provinces, where man, oppressed with cares on 
account of the prime necessaries of life, has scarcely 
leisure or inclination for the more noble employments of 
thought ; where the parsimony of Nature obliges him to 
remain solitary in extensive tr cts of country, and forces 
him to choose a kind of life, which, from its simplicity or 
savageness, is completely opposed to a high degree of 
social cultivation ; where the paucity of pleasures and oc- 
cupations is productive of paucity of ideas and. concep- 
tions ; and where the mind shares that chill and torpor 
which frigid Nature throws over those vast wilds, in which 
the horns and skeletons of an extinct gigantic animal 
world, of mammoths and rhinoceroses, or the yard-long 
claws of a prodigious bird, which reminds us of the kaph 
of eastern fable, are still found undecayed. 



SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY* 



CHAPTER IV. 

ATTEMPTS OF THE JESUITS AND CAPUCHINS IN TIBET—- 
. RESEMBLANCE OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM OF 
LAMAISM TO THAT OF THE CATHOLIC AND GREEK 
CHURCHES. 

As we approach more temperate climes, man becomes 
more susceptible of sublimer conceptions and milder sen- 
timents, and more disposed to an industrious, tranquil, and 
social life. Such we find him in the elevated valleys of 
the Tibetian Highlands, where we meet with a gentleness 
of manners, a social amenity, and a diversity of occupa- 
tions, which remind us of European civilization. 

Notwithstanding the observations of more recent tra- 
vellers, of a Turner, a Crawford, and others, we are still fr 
very imperfectly acquainted with the extensive and won- 
derful Tibetj that Switzerland of Asia. In this labyrinth 
of mountains, the summits of which glisten with everlast- 
ing ice and snow, while grapes, almonds, and peaches, 
ripen in the warmer valleys, the hostile natures of the north 
and 3outh of Asia are reconciled and wedded. Here the 
sable and the bear frequent the elevated wilds, and the lion 
and the ape haunt the lowland forests. Many species of 
plants and animals are peculiar to this region alone, as the 
gigantic dog, and that sort of goat, the fine wool of which 
furnishes the material for those shawls that are in such 
high request. The loftiest peaks of the Alps of Tibet far 
surpass in height our European Mont Blanc, and the 
craggy top of the bold Himalaya, and likewise that of the 
Dhawalagiri, are said to tower more than twenty-six 
thousand feet above the level of the Indian Ocean. Agri- 
culture, pastoral occupations, and mining, emplov the ma- 
jority of the inhabitants. There is no want of artists, and 
artisans, or of elementary and high schools ; and there 
are two written languages, one of which is appropriated to 
the purposes of civil life and the other to religious matters. 

Every thing here is divided into civil and ecclesiastical, 
and so is the whole nation^ both males and females. The 



TIBET. 59 

one part is engaged in an earthly, the other in a heavenly 
traffic ; the former labours for the latter, and the latter 
fasts and prays for the former. Here is the chief seat and 
centre of that Larnaism, which reigns from the banks of 
the Wolga to Japan and the snowy mountains of Corea, 
and which, next to the Muhamedan and Christian, is the 
most widely extended religion of any among the nations of 
the earth. 

In the eyes of the philosopher who considers the differ- 
ent forms of the various religions of the inhabitants of the 
globe, any of these religions acquires superior consequence 
by its extensive diffusion To us, however, Larnaism is 
less remarkable for its creed than for its ceremonies. The 
former is founded on the oriental primitive idea of a Su- 
preme Being, Burchan, represented single or in myste- 
rious trinity ; ruling over a spiritual world which sprang 
from himself ; obstinately opposed by an evil principle ; 
becoming man to reveal himself to mortals, by means of 
a power which emanated from him — word of God, light 
of God, son of God — the Budh and Schaka of Japan, 
the Fohi of China, the Buddha of Hindoostan, the Gaudma 
of the Birmans, &c. The Son of God of the Tibetians 
is named Mahamoony, also Schaka ; he was born of a 
virgin in the country of Cachemir, and came into the 
world, according to the Tibetian chronology, about a 
thousand years earlier than Jesus Christ. He is the prin- 
cipal object of divine worship. We meet with nearly 
the same fundamental idea in most of the religions of 
the warmer regions of Asia, and also with an incarnate 
God, God-man, demi-god, wonder-working prophet, &c. 
who has revealed whatever is most sacred to mankind. 

But, as we have already observed, the religious ceremo- 
nies of the Tibetians are to us more remarkable than their 
creed ; for it would appear that the oriental religious pri- 
mitive idea had here assumed the dress of the Christian- 
church. Their doctrines concerning God and his Mes- 
siah, the devil and hell, the Trinity, and the like, are of 
themselves sufficiently striking ; but still more so their 
belief in purgatory, their prayers for the souls of the de- 
ceased, their use of the rosary, of holy water, of extreme 
unction, and many other'practices, which remind us of the 



60 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

tenets and ceremonies of the Greek and Catholic 
churches. Among the Tibetians, as among the Catholics, 
all are either laymen or priests. The latter are distin- 
guished from the former by their dress. They have con- 
vents of monks and nuns in all the valleys and on ail the 
hills. Boys at the early age of eight years are admitted 
into the monasteries, and called during their noviciate 
Tuppas ; at fifteen they become Tohbas, and at twenty 
complete monks or Gylongs, who, bound by rigid rules 
and by inviolable vows of abstinence and chastity, devote 
their lives to exercises of devotion. The convents of the 
Gylongs have Lamas or abbots, and from them the pro- 
gressive gradations of the hierarchy ascend to the high 
Kutuchtes or Tibetian cardinals. The supreme head in 
spirituals and temporals, the vicegerent of God upon 
earth, the holy father and chief of the high priests, is the 
Dalai Lama or Teshoo Lama. 

The hierarchy of Tibet is, if possible, more perfectly 
or consequently constituted than the Catholic church 
among the European Christians. The Tibetian cardinals, 
it is true, on the death of a high priest or divine vice- 
gerent, elect a new one, but this is always an infant, born 
in the very hour or at least on the day of the decease of 
his* predecessor, in whom, according to their doctrine, 
the spirit of the late Lama is anew embodied. Thus, as 
they believe, the founder of their religion and thevicegerent 
of the Supreme Being on earth remains one and the 
same. His soul never alters but continues immortal and 
immaculate, merely changing its mortal envelope, and 
hence he is styled Lama Kacku, that is, the eternal as 
well as holy Father of all the Faithful. 

The Lama religion, however, is split into sects as well as 
the Christian, nor has it been without ifes religious wars 
like the latter. But the ancient history of this country is 
still involved in too profound obscurity ; perhaps we may 
some day learn more from their sacred writings which they 
still keep to themselves. The sect of the Shemmers, 
which is externally distinguished by high pointed red caps, 
is said to have been formerly the predominant ; but that 
of the Gyllupkas, who wear yellow caps, has since become 
more powerful. The Shemmers are still the ruling party 



TIBET. 61 

m the southern province of the Highlands in Bootan ; they 
have three Grand Lamas. The GyJlupkas, who occupy 
the northern part of the country, or Tibet proper, have 
also three chief Lamas — the Dalai-Lama at Lassa and 
Putala 5 the Teshoo-Lama at Teshoo-Lumba ; and the 
Jernaut-Lama at Khorka. 

The disposition of the people of Tibet is grave and 
pious ; their manners are gentle and more consonant with 
nature than those of the refined Europeans. If, never- 
theless, a female when she marries becomes at the same 
time the wife of all her husband's brothers, let it not be 
forgotten that there might have been in ancient times some 
particular occasion for this peculiar custom, to which the 
Jewish patriarchs themselves were not absolute strangers* 
and that it did not originate in licentiousness but was en- 
joined by the laws. If the convents of the monks as well 
as those of the nuns appear too numerous, and each of 
them to contain too many inmates — in the convent of 
Teshoo-Lumba, for instance, Turner reckoned three thou- 
sand seven hundred Gylongs for the performance of the 
daily service — let us recollect Rome and Spain, and the 
state of Catholic Germany and France thirty or forty years 
ago. If, besides worshipping God, the people of Tibet 
reverence their pope or Grand Lama as a demi-god, and 
a whole series of inferior spirits, let us not judge too 
harshly of them, bearing in mind that the superior beings 
to whom, as approaching nearer to the Supreme, they pay 
this reverence, merely occupy the places of those saints to 
whom, among us Europeans, shrines and altars are erected. 

Any attempt to convert to Christianity a people with 
a church constitution so firmly established would be the 
more hazardous,, the more closely its rights and doctrines 
resemble the Catholic, and the more intimately its political 
constitution is connected with the ecclesiastical. Catho- 
lic missionaries could not fail to be just as unwelcome in 
Tibet, as Tibetian Gylongs or Protestant preachers, who 
should repair to Rome to commence the work of conver- 
sion among the Catholics at the foot of the Vatican. 

In spite of this inconsistency, the Jesuits, and after them 
the Capuchins, were not deterred from journeying hither, 
and in the character of Lama-Gokhars, or European priests, 

6 



62 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

proclaiming the crucified Jesus. So early as about the 
year 1624, Antonio Andrada, the Jesuit, preached in Ti- 
bet, and he was followed by others of his order ; but they 
had very little success, and perhaps were not seriously in- 
tent on accomplishing the object which they professed to 
have in view. It is more than probable that their chief 
aim was to profit by the establishment of a commercial 
intercourse. Hereby they excited the jealousy of the go- 
vernment, and were sent out of the country as smugglers of 
contraband commodities. In 1707, some Capuchins ar- 
rived at Lassa. The unsuspecting Dalai- Lama granted 
them hospitable permission to settle in his dominions, but 
in the ordinance which he issued on this subject he ex- 
pressly excluded the trading ecclesiastics of the Europeans 
from the enjoyment of this privilege, allowed the Capuchins 
to reside at Lassa, so long as they should conduct them- 
selves according to the laws of the land, and commanded 
his subjects to treat them courteously. In this document 
no mention is made of the preaching of a new religion. 
The reverend fathers wisely took good care not to awaken 
the slightest suspicion of this intentiori. 

Francisco Horatio della Penna di Billi was at their 
head. Their first study was to acquire the language of 
the country : they sent the Tibet alphabet to Rome, where 
types were cast from it, and then all the materials for print- 
ing, accompanied by twelve Capuchins, were despatched 
from Rome to Lassa : for, the ordinary mode of printing 
in Tibet by cutting out the letters on wooden tablets was 
too slow a process. 

The Capuchins actually maintained themselves in their 
hospice at Lassa for a whole century ; they even founded 
another at Takpodshini, in the country of Takpo or Boo- 
tan, and conducted themselves with great prudence during 
the storms of civil and religious wars: but nothing has 
been heard of them for a long time, nor have we any 
information respecting the effects of their mission for the 
propagation of Christianty. 

It is a subject of just regret that, in 1820, the Rev. Mr. 
Schroter, a missionary stationed at Titalya, in the Presi- 
dency of Calcutta, was removed by death, while assidu- 
usly qualifying himself for the arduous work on which no 



CEYLON. 113 

Among other measures adopted by him for raising the po- 
litical, moral, and intellectual character of the inhabitants 
of the island, he obtained from the Crown a charter ex- 
tending the right of sitting upon juries to all the natives of 
the country ; a privilege possessed by no other natives in 
Asia ; and in return for this boon he urged them to adopt 
some measure for the gradual abolition of domestic slavery. 
In consequence of his suggestion and the anxiety of the 
people to prove themselves worthy of the privilege granted 
to them, the proprietors of slaves resolved, that all children 
born of their slaves after the 12th of August, 1816, should 
be free ; and thus an end was put to the state of domestic 
slavery, which had prevailed in Ceylon for three centuries. 
The day fixed upon, as the commencement of the era of 
liberty, by that philanthropic magistrate, whose example 
deserves to be held up as a model to the officers of every 
government, was the birth-day of the Prince Regent (now 
king) of Great Britain, in order that the slaves might as- 
sociate the more indissolubly the idea of the freedom of 
their descendants with reverence for the Crown under the 
protection of which that blessing was received. 

The first efforts for the religious instruction of the Cinga- 
lese were made, as in other cases, by the Missionary Soci- 
eties in London, and the government availed itself of their 
ardent desire to do good. Nearly two hundred schools 
are already established, and their number is every year in- 
creasing. An academy founded at Colombo for the study 
of the higher sciences is in a flourishing condition. The 
missionary stations in all parts of the island are multiplied, 
and there is no want but of the requisite number of labour- 
ers qualified to prosecute the sacred work. At Colombo, 
Galle, and other places, the Methodists have established 
schools, and the Missionary Society has stations at Candi, 
Badagamme, on the river Gindra, and Nellore. In the 
town of Jaffnapatam, at Batticotta, at Trincomale, and at 
Candi itself, the capital of the lately conquered kingdom t 
the English missionaries have settlements whence they 
make excursions in the neighbouring country, preaching 
or restoring the congregations founded by the Dutch, and 
afterwards neglected by the British, the ministers of which 
have been long dead, and which have in consequence re- 

10* 



1.14 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

lapsed into incredible ignorance. Their labours have not 
been wholly fruitless, and they have had the satisfaction to 
see priests of Buddha themselves, and among these one of 
the most learned and celebrated in the island, embracing 
Christianity. 

The American Board of Missions also has several sta- 
tions in the vicinity of Jaffnapatam. The missionaries 
have under their care sixty free-schools, with between two 
and three thousand scholars of both sexes ; and they are 
preparing to found a college at Batticotta for the instruc- 
tion of native youth in the higher branches of learning. 

The same activity at present prevails among the British 
missionaries in the extensive island of Java, especially since 
the English gained a footing upon it during their wars 
with Napoleon. After the Dutch had, at the commence- 
ment of the seventeenth century, made themselves masters 
of some of the coasts of this large, mountainous, and fertile 
island, they took laudable measures for the propagation of 
Christianity and the moral improvement of their pagan 
neighbours. In all the towns and villages where they had 
settlements, there were excellent ministers and zealous 
champions of the word of God ; but the violent political 
convulsions, the destructive effects of which extended 
across the ocean to the mountains of Java, overthrew 
many praiseworthy institutions. The French were intent 
only on the military occupation of the productive island. 
A grand monument of their prodigious activity is left in 
the magnificent road from Cape Diamond, near the town 
of Bantam, to the easternmost point of the island, which 
the French governor, General Daendels, completed in 
the short space of nine months, levelling hills, filling valr 
leys, and perforating mountains. 

The Muhamedan is the religion that still preponderates 
in Java. Every village has its mosque and its priest, who 
is at the same time a member of the civil magistracy. 
Near the town of Cheribon is still shown the tomb of the 
first Musulman who preached the doctrine of the Koran 
in Java. So sacred is it accounted that none but rajahs 
or princes are permitted to approach it. When the reli- 
gion of Muhamed gained the ascendancy in Jaya, the 
Hindoos fled to the island of Bali ; but many vestiges of. 



JAVA* 115 

those people are still to be seen at Solo, a town situated 
in a delightful and richly cultivated plain, as well as at 
Samarang and Sourabaya. 

The population of Java was estimated, in 18 15, at little 
short of four millions and a half, of whom upwards of 
eighty thousand were Chinese, and a large proportion 
Malays. The former, however, are by far the most en- 
lightened and intelligent, though they spring from the 
lowest classes of the inhabitants of China. Out of four 
Chinese you are sure to find one who can read, which is 
more than can be said at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century of the lower orders in all parts of polished Europe. 
In their principal settlements, and even in the villages, 
they have schools for their children. Hence it is notsur- 
prising that they should be in better circumstances than 
most of the Javanese. To this portion of the popula- 
tion of Batavia, where the Chinese constitute one sixth of 
the 330,000 inhabitants, the labours of the London So- 
ciety's missionary there seem to be largely directed. He 
is represented as being actively engaged in preparing and 
circulating Chinese tracts, and among the rest a monthly 
"Chinese Magazine," of which three thousand copies are 
printed. 

Unlike the Chinese, the Muhamedans, their priests not 
excepted, are ignorant ; they are but superficially ac- 
quainted with the Koran itself. Their religion is become 
a mere unmeaning routine. The more captivating, one 
would suppose, must be a doctrine capable of engaging 
their minds with the most sublime truths, and filling their 
hearts with the noblest sentiments. 

It is essentially necessary, however, that sensible and 
enlightened men be selected for the apostolic office, espe- 
cially among the shrewd and reflecting Chinese. It was 
an admirable idea of one of those Chinese in Java, when 
he said to an English missionary ; " I really believe that 
all the religions in the world are alike ; or rather that 
they are only different scions from one and the same 
radical truth." The missionary misconceived his meaning 
and returned an inapposite answer. Hence probably if 
happened that the Chinese, on being exhorted by the Eu- 
ropean only to pray diligently to Jesus, ironically replied 



116 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

u I am afraid he does not understand Chinese enough; 
and so I must le.trn English first for that." 

Upon the whole, the British missionaries are not so 
much deficient in good- will as in the requisite knowledge 
of mankind, talent, and intelligence. It is frequently the 
case that, probably For want of better subjects, ignorant 
persons, artisans, are selected for missionaries, who, in 
their pious enthusiasm, offer themselves for the arduous 
and dangerous undertaking, and complacently console 
themselves with the idea that the Lord is mighty in the 
weak. Hence less is accomplished with a great expense 
of labour and money than might reasonably be desired. 
Still the good that is effected by them is entitled to our 
grateful acknowledgment. 

If most of the nations of the other quarters of the globe 
are still living in a half brutal state without the blessing 
of Christianity, the chief part of the blame rests with the 
indifference of the Christian governments of Europe. 
Nay, many of them and their governors and inferior 
officers deem it more conducive to the commercial or 
political advantage of their respective countries, to prevent 
the light of religion from shining upon the nations, and to 
let the most fertile tracts lie desolate and uncultivated. 

Hence, numerous islands of Asia have been much more 
neglected than Java. The rich and extensive Sumatra, 
1050 miles long by 165 average breadth, is peopled on 
the coasts by Muhamedans and in the interior by pagans 
only. The total number of its population is estimated at 
three millions of souls. Both the English and the Dutch, to 
whom it was transferred in 1825 by the former, have here 
concerned themselves exclusively about their commerce. 
How dependent soever the native princes may be on them, 
they never bestow a thought on the means of humanizing 
them by degrees. In the interior of Sumatra not only are 
human victims offered to idols, but prisoners of war are 
put to death with excruciating torments, and eaten with a 
peculiar kind of broth prepared expressly for the purpose. 

British missionaries, however, were settled in this ne- 
glected island previously to its restoration to the Dutch ; 
schools were established by them, education was extended 
with considerable success,and the way was opened for 



JAPAN. 68 

one had entered before him — the preparation of the Scrip- 
tures for the inhabitants of this extensive region. 

In countries, the people of which have attained a cer- 
tain degree of civilization, and consider every foreigner as 
less enlightened than themselves, because he is neither 
sufficiently conversant with the language to display the 
store of his ideas, nor possesses knowledge enough to be 
acquainted with those of the natives, the duty of the Chris- 
tian missionary is infinitely more arduous than among 
demi-savages, in whom the European is enabled by the su- 
periority of his intelligence to excite admiration, confi- 
dence, and respect. Even the most ingenious of the apos- 
tles who could be sent thither from Europe would find it a 
most difficult task : for after they had acquired a complete 
knowledge of the language, institutions, and manners, 
they would have to encounter a host of prejudices, which 
are infinitely more numerous among nations more or less 
polished than among the wholly uncivilized, and the more 
firmly rooted, the more venerable they have become from 
their antiquity or the protection of existing institutions. 
The nations of Europe, with all their polish, are still rich 
in venerable prejudices, and it would not be advisable for 
a missionary of sound human reason to set about the work 
of conversion among us. 



CHAPTER V. 

RELIGIONS IN JAPAN SEVERITY TOWARDS HE 

CHRISTIANS, 

From the preceding remarks it may be easily inferred 
why the labours of Christian missionaries, after the efforts 
of a century, proved far less successful, not only in Tibet, 
but also in Japan and China, than among more savage and 
ignorant nations. 

The Romish church, indeed, found means in the early 
part of the seventeenth century to establish missions in 



9| SURVEY OF CHRI3TIANITT. 

Japan, but they were not of long duration. They were sooW 
suppressed as inimical to public order and to the estab- 
lished and only true faith. The Japanese empire, cut of! 
from the rest of the world, and having all its wants, re- 
sources, and objects, confined to itself, displays in many 
points a perfection of civil institutions, resembling and 
often superior to that of the European. A distinct line is 
drawn between the spiritual and temporal authority. At 
the head of each is a particular prince, whom we should 
style emperor and pope. The dignity of both is heredi- 
tary. The ecclesiastical constitution of the Japanese is 
as precisely regulated as the civil ; and all the crude ab- 
surdities formerly circulated on this subject, through the 
ignorance and misconceptions of the missionaries, scarcely 
deserve refutation. We learn from Kampfer that the 
primitive religious idea, which was the groundwork of the 
religions prevailing about the Indus and Ganges, in the 
mountains of Tibet, and throughout all farther India, ob- 
tains also in Japan. It is possible that tire most ancient 
religion of the country may be a wretched Shamanism, 
to which the vulgar are attached ; but notions infinitely 
more sublime have been introduced from China ; and it is 
well known that the Japanese sect of the Siuttos, who are 
exempt from every species of idolatry or image- worship, 
profess a faith coinciding with the eternal truths of reason, 
and worthy of the respect even of enlightened men. That 
the Japanese priests are more intent on temporal enjoy- 
ments than sanctity of life and the moral improvement of 
the people ; that these superstitious islanders perform pil- 
grimages with great devotion to consecrated places ; that 
they have numerous convents under rigid rules — these and 
many similar reproaches levelled against the inhabitants 
of the extremity of Asia come with a very bad grace from 
the lips of Europeans. 

After the expulsion of the Christian missionaries in the 
latter half of the seventeenth century, it was not till the 
year 1715, that the zeal and piety of the Abbe" Guidotti 
decided him to renew the attempt to preach Christianity 
in Japan. He regarded' himself as the instrument chosen 
by God for this purpose. Men who feel not in their bo- 
soms such a conviction ought to renounce all idea of ever 



JAPAN. 65 

commencing any great or dangerous enterprise for the 
benefit of mankind. We are in the dark respecting his 
fate. He was followed by Jesuits and Dominicans ; but 
they too accomplished little. Upon what pretexts, or 
under what disguises soever, they introduced themselves 
into the country by way of China or Kamtchatka, they 
were always strictly watched, and the execution of one 
of their number, Guido de Angelicis, a Dominican, in 
1748, proved the hatred borne to every one who appeared 
as a Christian. From the visits of recent voyagers to the 
Japanese coasts we know how difficult, indeed, we may 
say how impracticable it is for Europeans to penetrate 
into the interior of the country, or even to engage in any 
pursuit there without being jealously watched : nay, it is 
scarcely possible to introduce into Japan any books which 
merely have a reference to Christianity ; for every stranger 
the moment he sets foot on the soil of Japan, is searched 
in the strictest manner, and all his papers are carefully 
examined. If the slightest allusion to Christianity is dis- 
covered, he is, according to the existing laws, banished 
the country. Houses too are often searched by the offi- 
cers of government, and if they find in any of them a scrap 
of paper upon which Christianity is mentioned or a cross 
figured, the house is razed to the ground and its inhabit- 
ants are doomed to death. Such are the accounts given 
by the Japanese resident at Batavia. Hence it is scarcely 
credible that the Christian religion should make such rapid 
progress there, and that even the Emperor himself should 
be disposed to embrace it, as the Romish missionaries 
have too hastily or boastingly asserted in their reports 
transmitted to Europe by way of China. 



6* 



S£ SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER VI. 

STATE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATIONS IN THE CHI- 
NESE EMPIRE — DISSENSIONS AMONG THE MISSIONARIES. 

Better hopes dawned in China. The moral culture 
of the inhabitants of that immense empire is too far ad- 
vanced not to favour a more enlightened faith, which 
has already begun to take root amid the incessant popular 
fermentations, civil and religious. Shackling and para- 
lyzing as the ceremonial enforced in the civil relations of 
the Chinese may be, and oppressively as authority may 
be exercised from the throne downward ; the empire is 
of too vast extent, the population of about one hundred 
and fifty millions of souls — according to the statements 
of Staunton and Barrow, three hundred and thirty-three 
millions — too large ; the inhabitants composed of too 
many different nations — Chinese., Mongols, Tartars, In- 
dian Lolos, and savage Miaos in the mountains — for the 
whole to be imbued and held together by the spirit and 
will of a single individual, the emperor, or of his court. 
What power would for any length of time bind and con- 
trol the spirit of all Europe, if this portion of the globe, 
with its inhabitants, that is to say, with about one hundred 
and eighty millions of souls, were delivered into the hands 
of a single ruler ? 

By the diversity of the religions prevailing or tolerated 
here, a fermentation of ideas is imperceptibly but power- 
fully promoted : for, besides the sublime belief in the One 
God taught by Confutse, and the Chinese priests, called 
Lao-Kiuns, we find professors of Lamaism, bonzes and 
worshippers of Fo, Muhamedans, Jews, who emigrated 
hither in the first centuries after the destruction of Jem* 
salem, common pagans, and adorers of the heavenly bodies, 
and even Jukiaos, or Atheists, who inculcate merely lessons 
of virtue. At the same time religious fanaticism is not 
rare ; and by means of it, so lately as the year 1815, the 
Emperor Vantadshin was precipitated from the throne. 



CHINA. 6T 

' Most of the civil commotions which for many years 
past have agitated and convulsed China originated in reli- 
gious motives or pretexts. Setting aside the insurrection 
against the reigning dynasty of the race of the Mantchoo 
Tartars, (perhaps excited by the descendants of the family 
of the Mings, dethroned by the invaders in the seventeenth 
century), others have already broken out or are preparing 
in all parts. The islands of Formosa and Haynan, and 
the coasts of Tunkin and Cochin-Chiua, have already 
shaken off in some measure the imperial authority. In 
the north, the Pelin-Kin, that is, enemies of foreign reli- 
gions, are stirring ; in the west and south the fanatic Ke- 
dufis (religious assassins) as they are styled by the govern- 
ment — men, who sword in hand preached Thian-Thee- 
Ohe, which signifies literally M Heaven and Earth one !" 
implying fraternal equality of all men and community of 
property, and who had in 1804 filled nine provinces with 
their wild doctrines. In other quarters the " Society of the 
Three Powers" — Heaven, Earth, and Man — carries on 
its seditious practices, in which, under pretence of pro- 
tecting innocence and avenging injustice, it puts to death 
even persons invested with magisterial authority. 

If the Christian religion has not made greater progress 
among the people of China, where it has now been 
preached for some centuries, the chief fault has lain in 
the conduct of the missionaries, or in the spirit, not of the 
Christian religion, but of that religion which they taught. 
So far back as the middle of the sixteenth century, Francis 
Xavier, the apostle of Hindoostan, carried thither disci- 
ples of Loyola, among whom Matteo Ricci secured the 
favour of the then reigning emperor by his own mathe- 
matical acquirements and those of his colleagues, to such 
a degree that the Christians were allowed the free exer- 
cise of their religion. Soon afterwards, at the commence- 
ment of the seventeenth century, Dominicans, Francis- 
cans, and Capuchins, came to assist the Jesuits in the 
work of conversion. 

It is well known how the members of the different mo- 
nastic orders of Christendom transplanted their jealousy 
and enmity from Europe to the soil of China, and thus 
injured each other and the sacred cause in which they 



t18 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

were engaged. Because the more prudent Jesuits felt no 
scruple to call the true God Thien and Chang-ti, and per- 
mitted their converts to reverence the wise Confutse as 
the other Chinese did, the Dominicans and Franciscans 
inveighed bitterly against them as perverters of their holy 
religion. The dispute was carried on many years with 
great asperity before the papal chair at Rome, and more 
than one legate went to China to investigate the matter 
on the spot. The victory which the disciples of Ignatius 
could not gain over their adversaries at Rome they 
achieved, however, by their influence at the court of China. 
The papal legate a latere, Charles Thomas de Tournon, 
had to endure a confinement of four years in the house 
of the bishop of Macao, a Jesuit ; nay, the terrible bull 
of Pope Clement XI. Ex ilia die, (dated the 19th of 
March, 1715,) proved impotent when hurled against the 
majesty of the Chinese Jesuits ; and Mazabarba, the new 
papal ambassador to the emperor, had reason to rejoice 
that Kam-Hi chose merely to divert himself on the subject 
of the pope, his bull, and his religion, and to believe that 
the bull was directed solely against the superstition of 
vulgar Europeans, and not against the sublime and vene- 
rable doctrines of the people of the celestial empire. 

When, after the death of the tolerant Kam-Hi, the pro- 
pagation of Christianity was prohibited and its profession 
persecuted, the hostility between the monks and different 
orders ceased not either in dungeons or places of exile ; 
and the milder sway of that wise monarch, Kien-Long, 
only afforded a new scope for theological dissensions. 
This quarrel of above a hundred years standing, about 
Chinese customs and names, contributed not a little to 
render the missionaries contemptible or odious ; hence, 
too, at a later period, the new persecutions directed against 
them and all Christians in China might be considered as 
in some degree the result of this disharmony, and of the 
complaints mutually preferred by them to the mandarins 
and to the throne itself. 

Christianity has, nevertheless, become widely diffused in 
the provinces of China, and has continued vigorous in 
spite of all severities. At the death of Kam-Hi, the Jesuits, 
whom the bull launched for their annihilation by Gan- 



CHINA. 6§ 

ganelli, left unannihilated in China, had thirty missionaries 
in the capital itself, and in four Christian churches there 
about three hundred children and four thousand adults were 
annually baptized. In the provinces of Kiankieu, Koeits^ 
chu, Yunnan, and Suntcheu, there were large Christian 
congregations, convents, churches, and other religious 
foundations. The bishop of Cartoria not long since 
stated the number of adults baptized in one year, in the 
province of Fokien, at 1677, and that of children at 10,384, 

Much reliance, however, cannot be placed on these and 
other accounts, because we have been accustomed for 
more than a century to receive much too exaggerated and 
bombastic reports from the missionaries. We know still 
less respecting the real spirit of the professors of Jesus in 
China, than of their actual number. Be it, nevertheless, 
what it may, it cannot at any rate be other than respecta- 
ble, since it has often been capable of imparting the most 
admirable courage and fortitude under the sufferings of 
martyrdom, during repeated persecutions : for thousands 
cheerfully died the death of confessors, and thousands 
more sacrificed property, country, and temporal prosperity, 
to their faith. These sacrifices are not made but for such 
convictions as kindle a divine flame in the soul. 

The measures adopted by the government for eradicating 
these lofty convictions, exile, imprisonment, and death* 
are not likely to accomplish, but rather to frustrate their 
object. Ridicule is a much more dangerous weapon 
when it is dexterously employed : recourse was had to 
this also in China, and even by the government. The 
Catholic missionaries furnished ample scope for it in many 
of the legends of their saints ; and the miracles which 
they related, of St. Ursula for example, were held forth, 
even in imperial edicts, to the sound understanding of 
the Chinese as evidences of the folly of Europeans. 

The ordinance against the Christians, dated the 30th of 
January, 1815, is still in force. u How dare the Euro- 
peans" — such is the language of this document— 
" presume to mislead the people of our empire with their 
silly tales ? Without our permission they introduce priests 
and other persons, who propagate their doctrines in all 
the provinces contrary to our express laws. From this 



tO SURVEY OF CHISTIANITr. 

time forward the leaders of such a band of seducers shall 
be executed ; whoever spreads the religion of the Euro- 
peans, without giving cause for public scandal, shall be 
imprisoned ; and whoever embraces that religion shall, 
unless he renounce it, be banished to He-Lan-Keang. 
Tartars in this predicament shall forfeit their pay. Those 
Europeans at present resident at Pekin, who are mathema- 
ticians, and follow no other profession, are permitted to 
pursue it. All others shall be sent to Canton, to be des- 
patched to Europe by the first opportunity." 

From this mandate it is obvious that it was principally 
directed against the missionaries from Europe, in regard 
to the natives, it left sufficient scope, either for indulgence 
or severity, to the discretion of the viceroys of the pro- 
vinces : hence, it was liable to be executed in a very 
unequal manner in the different parts of the empire. 

The chief seat of the French mission, to which belong 
about sixty thousand Christians, is in the province of Si- 
Tchuen. At the head of it was Gabriel Dufresse, vicar- 
apostolic, who, having returned from banishment to which 
he had been condemned, was executed, and his head 
placed upon the gallows. Several Christians who mani- 
fested most zeal upon the occasion, shared his fate. The 
Europeans who were sent to Canton of course described 
these proceedings as " a furious persecution throughout 
the whole empire." They related that in 1817 still 
greater severity began to be shown in Pekin, that upwards 
of four hundred Catholics had been apprehended and put 
to the torture, and the like. According to subsequent 
accounts received at Rome, however, the persecution, as 
it was termed, was by no means general or violent ; the 
missionaries in Fokien and Kankieu had not been mo- 
lested ; and the emperor had repealed, in favour of the 
Jesuits, the edicts previously issued against them and the 
other Christians. In the spring of 1817, twelve Jesuits 
of the recently restored order were sent from Rome to 
China, and in Pulo Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island, 
has recently been established a college, in which about 
twenty students are qualifying themselves for the propa- 
gation of the papal religion in that empire. 

We, nevertheless, know positively from Krusenstern'e 



GHINA. 71 

work, that the European missionaries at Canton are vigi- 
lantly watched, and not admitted into the interior of the 
empire. The protestant missionaries sent in 1807 to 
Canton, by the London Missionary Society, were in the 
same predicament. These were the Rev. Dr. William 
Milne and the Rev. Dr. Robert Morrison. To the former, 
who was afterwards stationed at Malacca, where he died 
in 1822, we are indebted for a highly interesting u Retro- 
spect of the First Ten years of the Mission to China," 
a volume, the historical merit of which is perhaps its least 
recommendation. Nearly fourteen years have elapsed 
since the completion of Dr. Morrison's Chinese version 
of the New Testament, several editions of which have 
been printed, and he has executed jointly with Di\ 
Milne a version of the Old Testament in the same lan- 
guage. By means of his Chinese and English Diction- 
ary, in five quarto volumes, executed under the patronage, 
and printed at the sole expense of the East India Com- 
pany, and the Chinese Grammar compiled by him, Dr. 
Morrison has furnished English students of the Chinese 
with highly valuable facilities for attaining a knowledge 
of that very difficult language, and at the same time con- 
tributed to open more widely the door of access to the 
stores of Chinese literature and philosophy. But his 
labours in this department are more particularly important, 
as they supply the Christian missionary with the means of 
attaining with accuracy, and as far as possible with ease, 
the language of a people who compose almost a fourth 
part of the entire whole population of the globe. 

The philological labours of Dr. Morrison have also 
contributed to prepare the way for the future dissemina- 
tion of European learning and science, through the me- 
dium of the English language, among the natives of 
China, The introduction of these into the empire, as 
objects of study in the first place to the more learned, 
and gradually of education to others, would naturally tend 
to loosen the fetters of superstition and prejudice ; to 
substitute for a contempt perhaps more feigned than real 
a degree of respect for the inhabitants of Europe, and 
thus at length to procure a more candid attention, on the 
part of the more inquisitive Chinese at least, to the evi- 
dences and doctrines of Christianity, 



12 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY* 

It was the contemplation of these reciprocal advan- 
tages, in connexion with missionary undertakings in the 
East, which led to the foundation of the Anglo-Chinese 
College at Malacca, an institution which was not only 
projected by Dr. Morrison, but to which he contributed an 
original donation of one thousand pounds, and subse- 
quently for its annual support. 

In this institution, by its local situation sufficiently re- 
moved from the interference of the Chinese authorities, 
and yet admitting of an easy and extensive communica- 
tion with that portion of the Chinese population which is 
scattered over the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and 
occasionally even with those of the Chinese continent itself, 
are collected together all the requisites for enabling the 
Christian missionary speedily to acquire a knowledge of 
the language, literature, and philosophy of China, as well 
as becoming familiarly acquainted with the Chinese ver- 
sion of the Scriptures, by which means he may be qualified 
to go forth and preach the Gospel among the numerous 
Chinese of the Archipelago ; whence it is hoped that 
at no distant period native teachers will pass over to the 
continent of China, to teach their idolatrous countrymen 
the knowledge of that religion by which they themselves 
shall have been previously made wise unto salvation. 

In connexion with this object a missionary establish- 
ment was formed in 1815 at Malacca, on the recommen- 
dation of Dr. Morrison ; and it has eminently promoted 
the views of the Missionary Society in reference to 
China, particularly in respect to the translation, printing, 
and extensive circulation, of the Chinese version of the 
Scriptures and other religious publications, and to the 
direct instruction given to the Chinese at that settlement. 
In 1823, however, agreeably to an earnest desire ex- 
pressed by the late Sir Stamford Raffles, then governor of 
Singapore, it was resolved to remove the college at Ma- 
lacca, and to unite it with a Malayan college to be 
founded at Singapore, a small island at the southern ex- 
tremity of the peninsula of Malacca, containing about 
twelve thousand inhabitants, one third of whom are 
Chinese. The languages embraced by this institution are 
the Chinese, Malayan, Siamese. Bugguese, Arabic, and 



CHINA. 7S 

(lie language of the island of Bali — languages spoken by 
a population of at least three hundred millions. 

From the report of the London Missionary Society for 
1827, it would appear that this resolution has not yet been 
carried into effect, and that the college is still at Malacca c 
From the same source we learn that the number of stu- 
dents in this institution, in June, 1826, was twenty-eight ; 
but among these were no more than two Chinese. There 
were, however, at the same date, at Malacca, seven Chinese 
schools, containing about two hundred and fifty boys. 

In the present circumstances of China, the public 
preaching of the Gospel in any one spot of the empire is 
totally impracticable. All, therefore, that can yet be done 
is to disseminate the Scriptures and other religious publica- 
tions, together with such useful knowledge, either literary 
or scientific, as shall be adapted to enlighten, expand, and 
liberalize the mind. It is almost exclusively through the 
medium of books that missionaries can address them- 
selves to the myriads who people this immense country ; 
and that method of introducing Christianity among them 
has been for some years in extensive operation. Prior 
to 1822, upwards of one hundred thousand copies of va- 
rious publications in Chinese, including portions of the 
Scriptures, had been dispersed by the agents of the Lon- 
don Missionary Society alone, partly among the Chinese 
settlers in Malacca and Penang, and in various islands 
in the Malayan Archipelago, and partly among the navi* 
gators and others on board Chinese trading vessels, by 
which means they have obtained circulation in the very 
heart of the empire. 

At present, however, the general circulation of the 
Bible in China itself is almost out of the question, as the 
government has, from fear of conspiracies, prohibited not 
only all religious meetings, but also the books of the Ca- 
tholic church, in order to check that religious fanaticism 
io which the common people manifest a stronger disposi- 
tion than ever. 

The Catholic missionaries in China will, no doubt, 
throw not less impediments in the way of the Protestant, 
than the mandarines and the court itself could do : for 
hoth carry with them their prejudices and religious cnmi- 



74 SITRVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ties from Europe to Asia. In the eyes of the Capuchins 
and Dominicans a Protestant Chinese would be no better 
than a pagan ; and on the other hand the Protestant mis- 
sionary could not see the Catholic Chinese kneeling before 
the images of saints without profound pity. Both parties 
will anathematize each other, as missionaries in other 
countries have done, and thus render Christianity itself 
still more contemptible to the better educated Chinese. 

This melancholy spectacle, which has been but too 
frequently exhibited in other quarters of the globe as well 
as Europe — witness the missionary reports of Catholics 
and Protestants— demonstrates how far the generality of 
the European clergy of all communions have been from 
seizing the spirit of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER VIL 

SUKVEY OF TUNKIN, COCHIN- CHINA, AND THE BIRMAN 
EMPIRE THE PALEE LANGUAGE. 

To the south of China, separated from it by immense 
deserts and rugged mountains, lies the extensive empire 
of Tunkin, intersected by ranges of hills and fertile 
valleys. The inhabitants of this country, about twenty 
minions in number, of Mongol extraction, have mild 
manners and intelligent minds, and are nearly on a level 
with the Chinese in regard to the arts and sciences. They 
seem to have derived their religious notions from the 
nations dwelling at a remote period in the countries con- 
tiguous to the Ganges. They adore a Supreme Being, 
and pay still greater reverence to the tutelar spirits of 
their families and villages in numberless little temples. 
We are assured that, in the interior of the mountains, the 
evil spirit alone is propitiated with sacrifices ; probably 
for the same reason that many European Christians 
abstain from vice rather for fear of the devil than out of 
love to God. 



TUNKIN. COCfllN-CHIffA. 75 

So early as the seventeenth century, the Jesuits, Baldi- 
notti, Marquez, and Alexander de Rhodez, came to these 
parts to preach the crucified Jesus. The boasts made by 
them and their successors of the efficacy of their labours 
among the heathen, that in a short time they had two 
hundred handsome churches in the four provinces of the 
kingdom, and had baptized eighty thousand Tunkinese 
within two years (16 4o and 1646,) seem to have belonged 
to those exaggerations which the Jesuits are fond of em- 
ploying, either to enhance the fame of their Order in 
Europe, or to inspire others of their fraternity with 
courage to follow them. It is not improbable, however, 
that they excited a sensation, and perhaps disturbances of 
the peace, in Tunkin, by their zeal for the conversion of 
the people ; for, in 1721, they were all expelled the 
country, and many of the converts, especially the more 
opulent, were plundered and even punished with death. 
The Portuguese sent hither fresh missionaries from 
Macao ; but these were obliged to keep their real object 
a profound secret. Though wars and civil commotions 
obstructed the execution of the laws, still those laws 
themselves were not wholly forgotten; for, in 1775, two 
Dominicans, convicted of making converts, were publicly 
executed. 

The seed of Christianity had meanwhile struck root in 
these valleys of eastern Asia ; and frequently as the con- 
verts were exposed to public contempt, to the extortions 
of viceroys, or to the rapacity of the populace, still they 
persevered in propagating their nobler convictions. Ac- 
cording to the reports of the Romish missionaries, the 
Emperor of Tunkin, named Dsha-Loang, is more tolerant 
and gracious. He has repealed the old law of persecu- 
tion, allowed the Catholic bishop de la Barbette to erect 
several convents for pious professors of the Cross, and 
granted to the Christians the unmolested exercise of their 
religion. In 1807 the number of these, under four bish- 
ops, amounted to 307,000 souls ; at least this was the 
number stated by a missionary, who had resided in these 
countries eighteen years, to M. de St. Croix, a French 
traveller who visited the coast and the port of Turon. 

The territory of Cochin-China, a prolongation of the 



76 SURVEY OF CH1IISTIA1SITY* 

east coast of Farther India, adjoins Tunkin. Here too 
attempts were made, during upwards of a century and a 
half, to convert the people, who seem to be more or less 
connected with their neighbours by language, manners, 
and religious opinions. In this country as in Tunkin and 
China, the missionaries first introduced themselves as ma- 
ihematicians to the grandees and at court. As such they 
enjoyed protection and respect; they were invested with 
offices under the government, and by means of these the 
Jesuits contrived to acquire great influence. In 1741, 
Father Siegbert even obtained the honour of being ap- 
pointed chief dog-keeper to his imperial majesty of Co- 
chin-China. 

The Roman Catholic religion had made a prosperous 
commencement in Cochin-China, when, in the year 175i ? 
all the European missionaries were expelled the country 9 
and the churches demolished by command of the court. 
This calamity was chiefly occasioned by the folly of the 
missionaries themselves ; for the Jesuits, Franciscans, and 
Dominicans continued to cherish here their European 
jealousy for each other ; and the disputes about Jansenism 
were prosecuted as loudly at Bak Kingh and Cachao, in 
Cochin-China, as in Paris and Rome. Each of the Orders 
was solicitous to acquire an ascendancy over the rest. 
Several deputies, indeed, were sent from Europe to restore 
peace ; the empire was divided into districts ; one was 
assigned to the Jesuits, another to the Franciscans, and 
the French missionaries were placed between them : but 
this arrangement was ineffectual. The decrees of the 
popes themselves proved unavailing at such a distance, 
where the perverse and subtle Jesuits contrived to evade 
the ordinances of his Holiness. These quarrels termina- 
ted, as we have already observed, in the expulsion of all 
the missionaries. 

Since the year 1774, they have indeed been again ad- 
mitted into the country, and more indulgence has been 
shown to the Christians, who had till then been persecu- 
ted on account of their faith : but still the present state of 
Christianity in Cochin-China is enveloped in profound: 
obscurity. We only know from the particulars given by 
the old missionary at Turon to M. de St. Croix that, for- 



MALACCA. 77 

want of adequate resources for the maintenance of semi- 
naries, the number of the clergy was rapidly decreasing, 
while that of the Catholic Christians in the country amount- 
ed to six hundred thousand. 

Indeed, when we peruse the numerous controversies, 
charges, and vindications published about the middle of 
the eighteenth century respecting the missions in Cochin- 
China — when we consider, on the other hand, the calm 
solicitude of the good-natured Tunkinese to acquire the 
most important kind of knowledge, and on the other the 
unworthy, nay, disgraceful conduct of Christian priests — 
we are doubtful svhether a conscientious paganism is not 
far preferable to such vicious Christianity. When, in 
1733, the Congregation for Propagating the Faith at 
Rome sent bishop de la Beaume as Pater Visitator to 
Cochin-China, the Jesuits involved him in the keenest vex- 
ations, and played u. hundred malicious tricks to disgust 
him with the mission. Some of them enticed from him 
his cook, and others the medical attendant whom he had 
brought with him to take care of his health. Such was 
the effect of these and other mortifications that he fell ill ; 
and they then carried the joke so far as to send a whole 
pack of yelping hounds to be turned loose in his house, 
-the messenger who brought them alleging, that they were 
a present from the emperor, who had appointed the Pater 
Visitator to be keeper of his dogs. Poor old de la 
Beaume actually died broken-hearted in consequence of 
this treatment. 

Farther India runs out southward into a narrow pe- 
ninsula, covered with mountains, morasses, and intermina- 
ble forests, upwards of thirty thousand square miles in 
extent. This is Malacca, the original abode of the subtle 
and cruel Malays, whose race and language have spread 
themselves over all the Asiatic islands to the east coast of 
Africa and the west coast of America, and in the Austra- 
lian ocean as far as the Sandwich Islands. They dwell 
in the interior of the country in unconquerable indepen- 
dence, under various chiefs — poor, content, and arrogant. 
Their religious notions are as rude as their manners. It 
is said, that in their immense forests they still sacrifice hu- 
ofian victims. Malacca, the most important towa of 



18 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the Malays, is the chief mart for the traffic of the whok 
peninsula. 

This country too was early visited by Catholic priests, 
who came hither with the Portuguese traders in the six- 
teenth century to proclaim the kingdom of God ; but they 
confined their preaching to the coasts. That their labour 
was not absolutely thrown away is proved by the existence 
of a bishop at Malacca, whose diocess, however, is not 
extensive, nor is his dignity secure The Dutch cared 
more about pepper, tin, and ivory, than about the conver- 
sion of the Malays. After the Dutch possessions had 
been reduced by the British arms, in the wars with Napo- 
leon, the London Missionary Society sent messengers of 
salvation to Malacca to enlighten the Malays, 

Since Major Symes gave to the world his account of 
the embassy on which he was sent in 1795 by the gover- 
nor-general of India to the kingdom of Ava, new light has 
been diffused over the empires, countries, and nations, 
which occupy the west coast of Farther India, and the 
greatest part of this extensive peninsula. It was not till 
then that we again received tidings of the Golden Land of 
ancient Ptolemy — the Arracan, Siarn, Ava, and Pegu of 
the Portuguese, of which nothing had been heard since 
their voyages for discovery and commerce to the regions 
beyond the Ganges ; or of the extensive empire of the 
Birmans, founded about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury by the able and enterprising Alompra, who raised 
himself from the rank of a common huntsman to the impe- 
rial throne of Immerapoorah, and to the despotic sove- 
reignty over Ava, Pegu, Arracan, Meklay, and West 
Siam ; and of the high degree of civilization of those na- 
tions; of their large flourishing cities; their magnificent 
palaces, temples, and convents ; their gentle manners, their 
treasures, their libraries, and their ancient laws and usages. 
China and Japan have not arrived at a higher pitch ol 
culture, but the Birmans are less jealous and reserved, 
Even their females are allowed the liberty of social in- 
tercourse, as among European nations. Their laws, as 
Symes assures us, are wise and full of sound morality, 
Their police is superior to that of many countries in Eu 
jope. Neither confined by the prejudices of castes and 



BIRMAN EMPIRE. 79' 

nobility to hereditary occupations, nor cut off by religious 
ordinances from intercourse with foreigners, the Birmans 
are naturally hospitable and courteous, even to strangers, 
and more disposed to manly frankness than courtier-like 
dissimulation Knowledge is so Widely diffused in this 
country, that you scarcely meet with an artizan or even 
an individual of the lowest class of the people who cannot 
read or write — which is more than can be said of many a 
country in Europe which prides itself on its civilization. 

Neighbours of the lofty Tibet and the Bramins on the 
Ganges, the Birmans have in their religious notions much 
that is akin to those of the people on whom they border ; 
nay, they have the same fundamental tenets of that faith 
which, more widely extended than the Christian or even 
the Muhamedan religion, and far more ancient than either, 
predominates in the whole of southern and eastern Asia^, 
in the mountains of Tibet as in Tunkin and Cochin-Cru- 
na, in Ceylon as in Japan and China. 

Here prevail the adoration of a Supreme Being, the 
reverence of an incarnate God, or divine Messiah, who is 
worshipped in numberless temples by the Birmans under 
the name and image of Gaud ma and Buddha, and is called 
by the Siamese Somono-Codom, and likewise Budh or 
Po, the Chinese Foh. Here too we meet with the doc- 
trine of the transmigration of souls, of the punishment or 
happiness of spirits at the conclusion of their pilgrimage, 
of the clemency and mercy of God, which, as being his 
first attributes, ought also to be the first virtues of men. 
Here we again discover the similarity of religious notions 
and ceremonies to those of the Christians which we found 
in Tibet. Here too Gaudma is the Son of God, born of a 
virgin ; here too we hear of purgatory ; here too we see 
convents for persons of both sexes, rosaries, religious pro- 
cessions, shaven and barefoot monks, who daily sing in 
chorus, and take vows of poverty and celibacy; here too 
auricular confession and the remission of sins are intro- 
duced. 

If many of these doctrines and customs of perhaps the 
most ancient religion of Asia were not subsequently trans- 
ferred by Oriental Christians to the Catholic church, we 
cannot but be astonished at the resemblance of the Catho* 



SO SURVEY OF CHRISfrlAJCiM. 

lie church, its tenets, and ceremonies — which, however, 
were not adopted till several centuries after the birth of 
Christ — with those of Hindoostan, Tibet, Japan, Corea, 
China, Siam, Ava, Pegu, Ceylon, &c. For, since a 
clearer light has been thrown on ancient Asia, no one 
would suppose that all these things could be faint and dis- 
torted traces of the extinct JNestonan Christianity. 

As the language of the sacred writings of the Hindoos, 
Tibetians, and Japanese, differs from that of common 
life, so also does that of the Birmans. Among the latter, 
the Palee is the ancient and sacred language of the vota- 
ries of Buddha or Gaudma, and it is employed by the 
Birmans for religious purposes, as the Sanscrit by the 
Bramins, the Arabic by the Muhamedaus, and the Latin 
by the Roman Catholic Christian. Those who have 
studied the oriental languages consider the Palee as being 
in all probability the eldest daughter of the Sanscrit. W-e 
know, however, that in the Sanscrit books Palee signifies 
a shepherd, and that the most ancient inhabitants of 
Hindoostan were called Palees — an appellation wuich 
cannot but remind us of the Pahbothra of Pliny and Mela, 
that once renowned city-of Indian antiquity, no traces of 
which are now extant. 

The learned Hager connects with this appellation still 
grander recollections. It is possible that from these 
Palees, the Aborigines of Asia, Paiistan (Palestine) 
derived its name. From this quarter it was that the con- 
quering shepherds, the shepherd kings, the Hyksos, pe- 
netrated into Egypt. Bruce in his u Travels in Abyssinia," 
informs us that the shepherds of that country are still to 
this day called Balus. The Roman goddess, Pales, in 
whose honour the Palilia were celebrated, was the goddess 
of shepherds. This was scarcely an invention of Rome. 
It is well known that there are many words in the Sanscrit 
which have precisely the same signification as in Latin ; 
and that the Slavonian language has a striking affinity 
with the Latin, and many words in common with the 
Sanscrit. 

Saka, the Schaka of the Tibetians and Japanese, 
received divine honours from the Babylonians of old, 
Now Sakiah, in ChaJdean or Assyrian, signifies a prophet* 



B1KMAN EMPIRE, 81 

That he, or Buddha, the founder of the religion of 
Southern Asia, was the son of a virgin, was known to 
St. Jerome (Adversus Jovinianum, I. 5). Gaudama 
(Sommono-Codom) as the Birmans call Buddha, means 
in Phoenician, Syrian, and Chaldee, according to Hager's 
explanation, the Ancient, the First, the Antecedent. 

The Shamans of the Lama religion among the Mon- 
gols and Calmucks, the Shammers or Shemmers of Tibet, 
whom I have already had occasion to mention, the She- 
muen of the Chinese, are all fanatical penitents, ancho- 
rites and devotees, engaged exclusively with heavenly 
things. Such too were the Gymnosophists, the Sama- 
nasans of antiquity, who were known to Cicero and Plu- 
tarch, and of whom Pliny says : Per sceculorum millia*, 
incredibile dictu n gens ceterna — an eternal people, who 
have already existed for thousands of years. 

As all languages, both dead and living, point by their 
affinity to one general mother, from which all, or at any 
rate most of them, have probably sprung ; so all religions 
point, in their notions, images, and ceremonies, to the 
ideas and usages of an extinct aboriginal nation. But 
to return to the delineation of the present state of Chris- 
tianity among the Birmans. 

When the bold commercial spirit of the .Portuguese in 
the sixteenth century conducted their fleets to the coasts oi 
Siam and Pegu, they established with their first settle- 
ments institutions for the conversion of the heathen. The 
Christian friars and priests of those days were astonished, 
as they well might be, to find there, among the reputed 
heathen, monks by whom they were themselves surpassed 
in many virtues. The convents of the Birmans were and 
still continue to be temples of hospitality for the stranger 
and the unfortunate. Priests and novices, beneficent to 
men. compassionate towards brutes, none of which they 
slaughter for food, preaching the love of one's neighbour 
as the highest virtue, are not burdensome, like the Eu- 
ropean mendicant friars, by collecting alms, or making 1 
others labour in their stead. They cultivate with their 
own hands the land allotted for their support, and have a 
surplus to bestow in charity. 

The arms of the Portuguese proved serviceable to the 



32 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

Birmans in their wars with Pegu, and caused* the name 
of the brave Christians to be respected in the country. 
The missionaries, therefore, proclaimed the Gospel of 
the western world, without fear and with success ; but 
when subsequently the greatness of Portugal declined, and 
her possessions were reduced by the Dutch, the Christian 
settlers dwindled both in number and consequence. They 
would probably have become extinct, had not France, 
during the reign of Louis XIV., made fresh attempts to 
propagate the doctrine of the Romish Church in Siam. 
By the year 1720, however, the French missionaries 
were in deplorable circumstances. Above Siam, on the 
left bank of the river Blaygua, they had a bishop, toge- 
ther with a church and school for new converts. The lat- 
ter, mostly the dregs of the people, generally came in the 
greatest numbers to the Christian schools when the har- 
vest had failed, and disappeared again with the dearth 
of provisions. 

The missions of the Christians in Pegu and Ava fared 
in nearly the same manner. There are still to be seen 
the melancholy relics of Portuguese institutions, which 
the Congregation for the Propagation of thei Faith at 
Rome had with commendable attention maintained dur- 
ing the eighteenth century. In the latter half of that 
century, Percotto, the missionary, rendered good service 
to the sacred cause by the assiduous labours of twenty 
years. He was succeeded by Vicenzo San Germano, an 
Italian, sent by the Propaganda, a pious, intelligent, and 
truly respectable man. He was living in 1795 not far 
from Rangoon, one of the principal sea-ports of Pegu. 
His congregation consisted, according to Major Symes, 
who himself conversed with him, of descendants of 
the Portuguese, who, though still numerous, were in 
general in very needy circumstances. They had, 
nevertheless, built a handsome church, and purchased for 
their spiritualpastor a plot of ground, on which he had a 
commodious habitation and a garden. He subsisted on 
the voluntary contributions of his flock, for which he per- 
formed divine service twice a day, and instructed the 
children in the doctrines of the Romish Church. 

Since England formed a closer connexion with the 



BIRMAN EMPIRE. 8S 

Birmans for the sake of their commerce, the London 
Missionary Societies have had an eye to the diffusion of 
the religion of Jesus in these countries. The American 
Baptist Missionary Society likewise chose Rangoon for 
the main point of their pious undertaking. The town, 
consisting of ahout five thousand houses, peopled by thirty 
thousand inhabitants, and which, since its destruction 
by fire in 1807, has risen more beautiful from its ashes, 
is conveniently situated near the sea on the river Ira- 
waddy, which for length may be compared with the 
Ganges. Hither Messrs. Judson and Felix Carey, the 
latter a physician, were sent as the first Protestant mis- 
sionaries, in 1807, by the American Baptist Society. 
They commenced their labours by translating the Sacred 
Scriptures into Birman, and into the languages of Pegu 
and Siam. The emperor subsequently (in 1813) granted 
them permission to establish a press at Ava for printing 
their Bibles. Carey repaired thither, and the emperor 
appointed him his own physician, and employed him to 
inoculate his children with the cow-pox. 

In 1817 there were no Europeans at Rangoon, except- 
ing the missionaries and a French family. It appears 
that on the commencement of the recent hostilities with 
the English, the former were put under confinement and 
treated with the utmost severity by command of the goiden- 
footed monarch, as the sovereign of the Birman empire 
is denominated. The events of that war have served to 
make us better acquainted with the people of this part of 
India, and also to show that there was some exaggeration 
in the accounts previously given concerning them. Be 
this as it may, the peace concluded in January, 1826, by 
which the King of Ava ceded to the East India Com- 
pany the provinces of Arracan and some others, includ- 
ing the whole of the Western sea-coast of the empire, 
from the frontier of the British province oi Chittagong to 
the island of Salangar and the peninsula of Malacca, for 
an extent of nine hundred miles, seems to have opened 
an entrance for Christianity into this part of India. 

Amherst, the present head-quarters of the American 
missionaries, is a new town formed by the British near 
the mouth of the river Mariaban, and the seat of the 



B4 STUBVKY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

British Government in Birmah. They have now free 
access to the people without fear, and may employ all the 
means of instruction within their reach ; they may preach 
and establish schools in which the principles of Christianity 
can be taught ; and the natives may also inquire, read 
the Scriptures, hear the Gospel and embrace it without 
being subject as heretofore to penalty and oppression. 
Every advantage will no doubt be taken of this favourable 
change, and from the last report of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society we learn that in August, 1826, types had 
arrived from England at Colombo, in Ceylon, for the 
purpose of printing "the New Testament in the Palee 
which is the written language of the Birman empire. 

Previously to the war, a Baptist missionary had been 
stationed in the British Province of Chittagong, on the 
frontiers of the Birman empire, among the Mugs, who 
were originally refugees from the neighbouring province 
of Arracan. The congregation thus collected was dis- 
persed by the events of the war ; but since the restoration 
of peace and the cession of Arracan to the British, these 
poor people have returned thither in a body, with their 
pastor at their head. Thus has a new and easy access 
been obtained in a most unexpected manner into the Bir 
man empire ; and, from the relative position of this coun- 
try to China, it is not improbable that the extensive fron- 
tier of that vast and populous region may ere long be laid 
open to the Gospel. 



HINDOOSTAN. 85 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SURVEY OF HINDOOSTAN FORMER NARROW-MINDED POLICY 

OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN REGARD TO MISSIONS 
SCHWARTZ, THE MISSIONARY STATE OF THE PRO- 
TESTANT AND CATHOLIC MISSIONS — THE SYRIAN CHRIS- 
TIANS. 

Excepting those countries of Asia which are subject 
to the Russian and Turkish sceptre, there is no region in 
that part of the globe which contains so many Christian 
inhabitants as India on this side of the Ganges ; nor any 
in which the propagation of Christianity is carried on at 
a greater expense. Immense primitive forests, now be- 
longing by purchase to the English, separate Bengal from 
the Birman empire. 

Hindoostan, endowed beyond all other countries with 
natural beauty and riches, in Asia called the garden of 
God, of which, as the proverb says, the Arab dreams 
when he chews opium, was as highly celebrated in the 
remotest antiquity for the treasures of its cotton, pearls, 
and precious stones, as it is at the present day. The 
course pursued by the commodities of India to other 
countries gave existence to large cities and prosperity to 
the most distant empires. While the caravans from India 
continued to travel along the Tigris and Euphrates, Baby- 
lon flourished ; in Egypt, Memphis, and Thebes ; then 
Palmyra, or Tadmor, in the Syrian deserts, and Tyre ; 
afterwards Alexandria, Bagdad, Samarcand, Venice, Am- 
sterdam, London. What nation soever possessed the 
commerce of India, was the most wealthy and the most 
powerful ; and that which lost it sank into insignificance. 

India is at this day the main pillar of British greatness. 
Cut off Hindoostan and England will decline, as Portugal 
and Holland have declined. Hindoostan, with an area of 
above a million square miles and a population of one hun- 
dred and twenty millions of souls, is now nearly one half 
of it a British province. 

There is scarcely any part of the world in which the 

8 



86 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

superiority of European culture and civilization is more 
strikingly displayed than in this. A vast country, one of 
the richest on the face of the earth, as well by the in- 
dustry of its inhabitants as by the exhaustless bounty 
of Nature — a country full of valiant tribes, which, ac- 
customed to independence, never hesitated to sacrifice 
their lives for it, and which ages since were strong by 
religious ideas and civil institutions, by the arts and an- 
tique science — this country is now dependent on a na- 
tion not half so numerous as its inhabitants, dwelling in 
a northern island in a remote quarter of the globe, at a 
distance of more than five thousand miles ! Scarcely 
forty-six thousand Europeans live among sixty millions of 
natives and keep them in awe. Not more than twenty 
thousand of these Europeans are soldiers, who, being too 
few in number for such extensive possessions, have asso- 
ciated with themselves one hundred and forty-four thou- 
sand natives to defend their conquests as well against the 
inhabitants themselves as against the contiguous inde- 
pendent states. Even the civil administration of the 
country is carried on by about three thousand European 
officers, who have under them about twelve thousand na- 
tives, And yet the vast machine works with the utmost 
security, regularity, and quiet, without stoppage, without 
disturbance, without complaint. 

This is not the proper place for calculating the tons of 
gold which Britain derives from the commerce of India, 
and by means of which rather than by her fleets and ar- 
mies she holds the ascendancy in her own quarter of the 
globe, and can involve it in the flames of war or pacify it 
at pleasure. The friend of mankind is more deeply inte- 
rested by the efforts of the English to diffuse European 
knowledge, science, and civilization, among the Hindoos 
under their sway. To their honour be it also remarked, 
that they strive assiduously to multiply and improve the 
schools of the natives. The College of Calcutta is one 
of the most admirable institutions in which youths des- 
tined for official situations receive a suitable education. 
To their honour be it further observed that the conquerors, 
though unable suddenly to illuminate with the light of 
Christianity the confused religious notions which the Hin- 



HIND005TAM. 87 

doos have inherited from remote antiquity, are yet ear- 
nestly bent on diminishing the effects of many of those 
notions. For, as the women of the two highest Hindoo 
castes were accustomed, in the days of Alexander and 
Cicero, and assuredly at a much earlier period, to burn 
themselves of their own accord, with all their valuables, 
at the death of their husbands, they still continue the 
practice in our times. Widows of the inferior castes 
submit to be buried aiive. During the summer of 1812, 
more than one hundred widows of deceased Bramins as- 
cended the funeral pile and were consumed together with 
the bodies of their husbands ; and it is calculated that in 
the ten years from 1815 to 1824 inclusive, the total num- 
ber of females who thus sacrificed themselves amounted 
to 5997 in Bengal, and in the whole of British India to 
6632. 

The original copy of the ancient law prescribes that 
the pile shall be set on fire before the arrival of the widow, 
that she may have her free choice till the very last moment. 
In 1818 the English authorities insisted on the literal ful- 
filment of this ordinance in the philanthropic hope of 
saving the lives of two young and lovely widows. It was 
expected that what the most urgent entreaties failed to 
accomplish might be effected by the natural horror which 
the sight of the flames would produce. All was to no 
purpose. The self-devoted victims, after conjuring the 
assembled concourse of people never more to obstruct 
affectionate wives in a similar manner in the performance 
of a sacred duty, leaped into the flaming pile and perished. x 

The Marquis Wellesley, while governor- general of In- 
dia, laboured, but to no purpose, to check the horrid prac- 
tice. His efforts, however, succeeded in 1802 in putting 
a stop to the sacrifice of children to the idol at Juggernaut, 
in consequence of vows made by the parents. Infants 
were formerly exposed or thrown to the crocodiles and 
sharks in the Ganges or the Lake of Jilka. In like man- 
ner, Colonel Walker of the Company's service found 
means, in 1812, to prevail on some independent tribes of 
the peninsula of Guzerat to abolish almost entirely the 
legal murder of the female infants of people of the higher 
classes. In the year 1804 alone, the number of the un 



SB STOVE* OF CHRISTIANITY 

fortunate infants thus disposed of in those districts was 
estimated at about seven thousand ! 

Though these as well as other barbarities and degrada- 
tions may be in a great measure the effects of ancient 
prejudices or vices in social order, still it is the religious 
notions of these people that in general produce and main- 
tain their prejudices and manners, as well as their civil in- 
stitutions. Thus the four principal castes of the Hindoos, 
with their eighty-four subdivisions, have sprung solely from 
their most ancient religious notions ; or what is yet more 
probable, this fruit of the most execrable tyranny was 
sanctioned and perpetuated by religion. Hence millions 
of the ablest and most useful persons, because they belong 
to the lowest castes, are doomed on account of their birth 
to scorn and degradation as long as they live. 

Unless the nation be enlightened by a more humane, 
or rather a more divine religion, any real exaltation of its 
character is out of the question. Hence it has remained 
for thousands of years between the Indus and the Ganges 
confined within the narrow circle of its notions, customs, 
and way of life. As it was found by Aiezander of Mace- 
don more than two thousand years ago, as it is described 
by Diodorus Siculus and Arrian, so we still see it clinging 
to ancient usages, fettered, nay, petrified as it were by the 
system of castes. It remains a visible relic of long by- 
gone ages, attesting their existence, like the pyramids of 
Egypt amidst the other works of human hands. 

Hence the efforts that are now making for the diffusion 
of the doctrines of Christianity among the Hindoos, are 
of more importance in their results for the history of the 
world, than all the plans of conquest and legislative mea- 
sures of the East India Company : for the ideas revealed 
to mankind through Jesus will infuse new life in that de- 
licious climate, and as it were create a new world. 

For some centuries past attempts have been made to 
introduce Christianity among the Indians ; but they were 
attended with little success. There was never any want 
indeed of inspired men, who would gladly have prosecuted 
the work commenced by their predecessors. It was not 
the indocility of the Hindoos, neither was it the long series 
of wars carried on in the country, but the selfish mer* 



HINDOOSTAK. 8£ 

cantile policy of England, reckless of every thing buf 
money, that proved the principal obstruction to the diffu- 
sion of the word of God. The Directors of the East 
India Company even forbade the propagation of purer 
religious notions, considering them as not requisite for the 
consolidation of their authority over their immense pos- 
sessions, or rather perhaps as dangerous. With the same 
principles of government, agreeably to which European 
sovereigns at the present day would fain check the pro- 
gress of knowledge among their subjects, the Directors 
of the East India Company cared not for all the abomi- 
nations and mischiefs arising from Indian prejudices, so 
long as their Asiatic vassals only performed and paid 
what they were required to pay and perform. No mis- 
sionary therefore durst show himself in India without per- 
mission, and that permission was very rarely granted. 
To confirm themselves in the possession of their con- 
quests, they even opened the avenues to the most import- 
ant offices to Muhamedans and Hindoos in preference to 
Christians : nay, while with ostentatious tolerance they 
afforded the greatest facilities for the propagation of the 
Muhamedan faith, scarcely any care was taken to impress 
by external appearances the slightest respect for Chris- 
tianity. The agents of the Society for Propagating the 
Gospel, which since 1698 has made the diffusion of Chris- 
tianity in Asia its favourite pursuit, and in our times those 
of the Catholic Missionary Society, have even been 
obliged occasionally to seek in the Danish settlements a 
residence for their missionaries, which was denied them 
in British India. 

The only Protestant mission which received any pro- 
tection was on the coast of Coromandel, where Lu- 
theran preachers, supported by the London Society for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge, have been for a century 
past actively engaged. Such has been the success of. 
their labours, that they have collected around them a con- 
gregation of fifteen or twenty thousand Christian Hindoos, 
On the other hand, when, at a more recent period, other 
missionaries found their way to India without the Com- 
pany's permission, through the Danish settlement of 
Herampore, those who were afterwards despatched to 



90 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

supply the places of the first on their decease were sent 
out of the country by order of the Directors. This was 
the effect of narrow-minded, selfish, mercantile policy— 
the same which even at the present day would not blush 
to raise its voice against the abolition of the slave-trade 
and of slavery. Verily the Attilas and Robespierres are 
not the only masters who, for the lust of money and do* 
minion, would not stick at the slaughter of their fellow- 
creatures. There are more petty soul-crushing despots, 
who, to be themselves the only men, would fain transform 
the rest of their species into brutes. 

With the year 1813, however, when the Directors of 
the East India Company were obliged to enter into nego- 
tiations with the British government and the Parliament for 
a new lease, if I may so express it, of their Asiatic do- 
minions, a change took place in the situation of India. 
The benevolent Dr. Claudius Buchanan, who, in his 
travels through the extensive peninsula on this side of the 
Ganges, had witnessed the baneful effects of that timid 
mercantile policy to which I have adverted, had at the 
same time the courage to expose all its vileness. The 
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in 
London laid the deplorable state of religion and the 
conduct of the directors in regard to India before the 
public and before Parliament, and showed what inhuman 
art and assiduity were employed to deprive about sixty 
millions of British subjects in that quarter of all opportu- 
nity of acquiring a knowledge of the Christian faith, „ 
Between the 15th of February and the 12th of June, 
thirty-six petitions, numerously signed, were presented to 
both houses on this important subject. 

At length it was proposed in Parliament that the British 
possessions in the East should have in future an inde* 
pendent church establishment, and that it should be placed 
under the superintendence of a bishop and three arch- 
deacons. On this occasion inveterate prejudice, self* 
interest, and disguised intolerance, took the alarm and 
loudly opposed what duty, humanity, piety, and sound 
reason, alike dictated. The minister, (Lord Castlereagh) 
however, supported by Wilberforce, Smith, Thornton, and 
other philanthropists, espoused the sacred cause of Chris* 



HINDOOSTAN. 91 

tianity against Christians and proved victorious. The 
measure was carried in the lower House by a great ma- 
jority, and passed through the upper without opposition. 

A worthy and pious divine, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Fan- 
shaw Middleton, was selected to be the first bishop of 
India, and Calcutta was fixed upon for the episcopal 
see of the British church in the East. That vain appre- 
hension lest the diffusion of Christianity in India might 
occasion civil disturbances and insurrections, which some 
already felt or at least strove to excite in England, has 
since subsided. It was merely the offspring of prejudice, 
ignorance, or pride ; for almost all the ancient sovereign 
families of the Hindoos are sunk into such complete de- 
pendence on the British government, that they feel no 
disposition to resistance, especially if they are justly dealt 
with, and not subjected to restraint in matters of religion, 
which is adverse to the spirit of the doctrine of Christ. 

Since that year ten-fold zeal has animated the Pro- 
testant institutions for the conversion of Hindoostan, 
which, before another century has elapsed, cannot fail to 
produce a total revolution of ideas, a great change of 
manners, and an absolute renovation in the character of 
its inhabitants. Admirable as the generous enthusiasm 
of the British Societies is on the one hand, so touch* 
ing on the other is the disinterested devotedness of those 
who bid adieu for ever to their relatives, their country, 
and European enjoyments, to pass the rest of their 
lives under great privations among the Hindoos, and 
like the first disciples of the Saviour to proclaim the 
love of God, his paternal relation to man, the retribu- 
tion of eternity, together with the duties of humanity. 
The activity of the numerous Bible Societies, which 
provide translations of the sacred records of Chris- 
tianity in all the languages of Hindoostan, and annually 
distribute many thousand copies of them, promotes in no 
small degree the labours of the pious heralds of Christ. 
Hindoos, Muhamedans, Persians, Chinese, and Catholic 
Christians, now read the word of God — children read it 
in the schools — Bramins read it from curiosity ; and those 
sublime truths, expressed in a child-like spirit, which en- 
lighten the reason, solve the profoundest problems of life. 



92 SURVEY OF CHRISTIAXITV. 

reveal God, eternity and humanity, in admirable connex- 
ion, operate quietly yet powerfully on the heart and un- 
derstanding. 

I shall not here advert to the Christian congregations of 
the British and other Europeans in their cities and for- 
tresses along the coasts of India, or in the interior of the 
country, nor to their old and numerous churches and 
schools. These are well known — they are mentioned in 
every Geography. My purpose is to show, in a rapid 
sketch, how far the preachers of the Christian faith have 
penetrated and spread themselves in British India. 

One of the oldest British missions is that of Madras. 
So early as the year 1728, some Lutheran ministers 
arrived in this populous city, containing upwards of three 
hundred thousand Malabars, Chinese, Armenians, Hin- 
doos, black Jews, Muhamedans, Europeans, and Mes- 
tizes, where they found abundant opportunities of satisfy- 
ing their pious wishes. Here, as well as in the whole 
country round, great things have since been accomplished. 
In this province is the most celebrated place to which the 
East India Catholics perform pilgrimage, the reputed 
grave of Thomas, the apostle, at Meliapore ; in this 
province too is Bell's celebrated school for Hindoo 
children at Egmore ; and, besides the ancient Christian 
congregations established by the Portuguese and the 
Danes, many new ones have sprung up, as, for instance, 
those at Sadras and Woeperi, near Madras. The Lu- 
theran missions at Cuddalore are only about ten years 
younger. Those of Tanjore, commenced since 1766, 
are now extremely flourishing. 

The capital of the kingdom of Madura, dependent on 
the British, is Tritchinopoli. Here too dwell several 
thousands of converts belonging to the different Christian 
churches. It was here, as well as in the kingdom of 
l'anjore, that the truly eminent servant of God, Frederic 
Schwartz, a native of Sonnenberg, in the New Mark of 
Brandenberg, a man imbued with the heroic spirit of the 
primitive confessors of Christianity, did infinite good by 
preaching the Gospel for nearly half a century. He was 
a father to his converts, to his friends, and to his foes. , 
At the head of the latter were the crafty and malignant 



HINDOOSTAN. 93 

Jesuits of Tanjore. In spite of voluntary poverty, still 
rich for the poor, teaching and doing good were his 
habitual occupations. Through his means Christianity 
spread into the heart of the dominions of Hyder Ali, who 
had a high esteem for the evangelical patriarch ; to his 
labours was owing the commencement of many Christian 
congregations ; and through his co-operation arose the 
numerous provincial schoo!* of the kingdom of Tanjore, 
which have been productive of such beneficial effects. 
The European and Hindoo disciples trained by him are 
still prosecuting the good work in the spirit of their 
master. Serfodjee, the rajah of Tanjore, caused a, monu> 
ment to be erected for him in the year 1 801, in the church 
at Tanjore, and founded a school in memory of him, at a 
village not far from his capital, for the maintenance and 
education of fifty poor Christian children. Such was the 
affectionate reverence of this Indian prince for the ex- 
cellent Schwartz. How rarely are such honours paid by 
European sovereigns to the most meritorious teachers of 
their subjects ! 

The whole country around the great city of Calcutta, 
the capital of Bengal, and the most important commercial 
city of modern Asia, Canton excepted, is now traversed 
by Protestant preachers oC the Gospel. In these parts 
there are few villages without Christians, without schools, 
without Bibles. In Calcutta itself a school-house for 
eight hundred Hindoo children of both sexes was erected 
by the missionaries. 

In 1822, schools for the education of native females 
were begun in the same city, and there are now five hun- 
dred receiving instruction in reading, writing, and needle- 
work. The sum of 43,000 rupees has been collected for 
the foundation of a Central School there, 20,000 being 
contributed by a native rajah, and 18,000 raised by the ex- 
ertions of the ladies of Calcutta ; and the first stone of 
the building was laid in May, 1-827, by the lady of the 
governor-general. The foundation of such schools must 
be regarded as one of the most powerful means of impro- 
ving the Hindoo character. 

The Church Missionary Society alone has now esta- 
blished Missionary stations— 1. In the Presidency of Ben 



94 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

gal ; at Calcutta, Burdwan, Buxar, Gorruckpore, Benares- 
Chunar, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Agra, Merut, and Delhi 
- — 2. In the Presidency of Madras ; at Madras, Poona- 
mallee, Mayaveram, Palamcottah, Cotym, Allepic, Co- 
chin, Tellicherry, and Nellore — 3. In the Presidency of 
Bombay ; at Bombay, and Basseen, in the North Concan 
— 4. In the Island of Ceylon ; at Cotta, Candy, Badda- 
game and Nellore. In these stations there are twenty- 
eight missionaries who have received ordination. 

The same Society has a seminary near Madras for 
training up young men as schoolmasters and assistants in 
the work of the missions. It is proposed that this insti- 
tution shall be sufficiently extensive to afford instruction to 
sixty students, not only in theology, English, and the an- 
cient languages, but also in Tamul, Gentoo, and Sanscrit ; 
and that a fourth part of these students shall be country- 
born and the rest natives. 

At the instance of Bishop Middleton, a college for the 
education of missionaries* which received the name of 
Bishop's College, was erected in 1821 at Calcutta. The 
expense of the building was defrayed out of the donations 
of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the 
Church Missionary Society, and the Society for the Pro- 
pagation of the Gospel, which contributed £5000 each. 
The college is the property of the latter, and that Society 
is responsible for its support, towards which the Church 
Missionary Society has annually voted the sum of £1000. 

The like activity prevails in the Danish town of Seram- 
pore, about twelve miles northward of Calcutta, and in its 
environs. Here English Baptist missionaries, who were 
not permitted to settle in the possessions of the British 
East India Company, have been assiduously labouring since 
1799, chiefly in translating and printing the Scriptures and 
religious works in the languages of the East. Here too 
they have founded a college for the education of native 
youth, for which a royal charter of incorporation has re- 
cently been obtained from his Danish majesty. 

In the town of Cutwa, in the district of Jessore, about 
ninety miles further north than Serampore ; at Gumalty* 
near the town of Gour, two hundred and fifty miles north* 
ward of Calcutta ; at Balasore 3 in the vicinity of the tern 



HINDOOSTAN. 95 

pie of Jaggernaut, on the Gulf of Bengal, in the province 
of Orissa ; at Agra, the ancient, now half desolate me- 
tropolis of the great Moguls ; at Nagpore, the Mahratta 
capital of Berar ; at Patna, the great city of Bahar, which 
is said to contain half a million of inhabitants ; at Bom- 
bay ; at Chittagong, on the easternmost frontiers of Ben- 
gal, near the Birman forests; at Sirdhana, northward of 
Delhi, not far from the country of the Seikhs ; at Pandua, 
at the foot of the Chinese mountains ; at Allahabad, where 
the Jumna falls into the sacred Ganges, the celebrated 
place of resort of Indian pilgrims and devotees — in coun- 
ries where formerly Europeans were seldom seen, and 
preachers of the Gospel never, now dwell British mission- 
aries, teaching the people and founding schools. 

Not Europeans only, but converted Hindoos, converted 
Bramins, converted Armenians and Muhamedans, also 
proclaim the glad tidings of the Gospel. An astonishing 
emulation prevails, and nowhere is it unproductive. The 
missionaries teach with zeal and baptize with caution. 
The number of the baptized would annually be greater^ 
were not the Muhamedans as well as the Hindoos appre- 
hensive of losing, by the public profession of Christianity, 
the consideration which they enjoy among their own peo- 
ple, and with it the means of subsistence. Hence most 
of the converts belong to the lower classes, though there 
are some from the higher Indian castes : nay, it is fre- 
quently the case that even schoolmasters who are still pa- 
gans teach Hindoo children to read the Bible. 

Many of the new converts receive in baptism names not 
usual elsewhere among Christians, but worthy of imitation, 
for instance : Abdool-Messeeh, Servant of Messiah ; Igna- 
yut Messeeh, Gift of Messiah Nuwazisch Messeeh, Be- 
neficence of Messiah ; as three Indian preachers at Agra 
are actually named ; or Taleb Messeeh, Disciple of Mes- 
siah ; Burrukut Ulla, Blessing of God. It is already in 
contemplation to found higher academical institutions 
for training missionaries from among the natives — an un- 
dertaking which cannot fail to be crowned with signal 
success. 

How willing and zealous soever a missionary from Eu- 
rope may be, the moment he sets foot on the soil of India 



96 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY* 

he has to encounter many unexpected circumstances which 
tend to shake the firmness of his resolutions. The spare 
feeble forms of the natives which meet him there in all 
their squalidness, whose uncovered limbs shock the eye 
and whose harsh sounding language offends the ear, are 
the more repulsive from their contrast with the haughty 
carriage and the more athletic figures of the European set- 
tlers, who move about among them like beings of a higher or- 
der. If he conquers himself so far as to become their equal, 
their friend, he has to struggle for years with the acquisi- 
tion of the language, and still longer with the prejudices 
of the Europeans against those despised creatures. For 
even the most philanthropic of the European settlers fre- 
quently deem it impossible to conduct the morally crippled 
Hindoos to Christianity, and hence regard the undertaking 
as a vain attempt of inexperienced euthusiasm or want of 
judgment. The common Hindoo, on the other hana\ 
full of cunning and selfishness at the same time servile, 
cringing, and mistrustful, seems from the effect of the sys- 
tem of castes, entailed for thousands of years upon his 
race, to be for a long series of generations to come reli- 
giously and morally incurable. This is the work of orien- 
tal despotism. 

Besides the efforts of the English for the conversion of 
the Hindoos, we must advert to those commenced at the 
beginning of the eighteenth century on the coast of Coro- 
mandel, and the chief point of which was Tranquebar. 
King Frederic IV. of Denmark, furnished occasion for 
them by the liberal foundation, in 1706, of a Missionary 
College at Copenhagen. The first pupil of this institution 
who went to India was the learned and philanthropic Bar- 
tholomew Ziegenbalg. The work begun by him at Tran- 
quebar was prosecuted by others in the same pious spirit, 
powerfully supported by the celebrated Orphan-House of 
Halle, and by the London Society for the Promotion of 
Christian Knowledge. There are now many flourishing 
congregations along that coast. 

Ail that has hitherto been done for the diffusion of the 
divine ligtit among the people of Hindoostan has the strong- 
er claims to admiration, inasmuch as it has been effected 
through the efforts of private individuals in Europe, espe- 



lilNDOOSTAN. 9 \ 

cially English and Germans. Kings and princes, amid 
the magnificence and profusion of their court festivities, 
were too poor in money and in spirit for deeds of this kind., 
worthy of superior mortals, who, with godlike benevolence, 
love even the people of distant zones as their neighbours 
Much, however 1 as those generous philanthropists have 
effected, it is but trivial in comparison with what yet remains 
to be accomplished in those immense regions. 

The government of India has at length begun to takt 
a benevolent interest in the advancement of knowledge, 
which is particularly manifested in the appointment about 
two years since of a Committee of Public Instruction at 
Calcutta. There are two establishments at Calcutta, the 
Mudrissa or Muhamedan College, and the Hindoo Col 
lege, which are under the direct superintendence of this 
Committee, who have also under their care the Vidyalaya 
or Anglo-Indian College at Calcutta, Colleges at Agra. 
Delhi, and Benares, and schools in different parts of the 
country. For the various objects of the Committee an 
annual sum of 100,000 rupees was placed at their dispo- 
sal ; but, in order that they might be put at the commence 
ment of their operations in possession of a considerable 
fund for the construction of buildings and other temporary 
objects, the grant was made to take effect from the year 
1821-1822. 

Among the measures adopted by the Committee, with 
the sanction of government, for extending the cultivation 
of useful learning, is the establishment of a press capable 
of executing work in every oriental type likely to be required 
on that side of India. In these plans they are seconded 
by the liberality of opulent natives, one of whom has placed 
at their disposal the sum of 20,000 rupees, a second 
22,000, and a third 50,000; this last is Budinath Roy. 
whose donation of 20,000 for the promotion of the edu- 
cation of native females has been already recorded. These 
sums will be appropriated to the endowment of scholar- 
ships in the Anglo-Indian College. 

The government of Madras is following the example 
thus set by the supreme government in respect of native 
education, by the appointment of a similar Committee of 
Public Instruction for that presidencv. It- is in contem- 

9 



98 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

plation to endow schools in various parts of the provinces 
under its control, and to found an institution at Madras for 
the preparation of teachers. 

I cannot conclude this survey of the operations of Pro- 
testants for the conversion of the people of Hindoostan, 
without adverting to the early removal of the first two pre- 
lates appointed to the newly-founded see of Calcutta. 
Bishop Middleton died in 18*2, and his successor, .Dr. He- 
ber, expired suddenly at Tritchinopoli in April, 1827. In 
little more than two years, the latter had visited almost 
every station throughout the wide extent of the British 
possessions where a Christian church could be assembled ; 
and he delighted to consider himself as the chief missionary 
of India. When the news of his decease reached Eng- 
land, the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, 
which, as I have elsewhere stated, had voted 10G0Z. annu- 
ally to Bishop's College, Calcutta, resolved, in token of 
respect for his lordship's memory, to apply the grant for 
1826, and such portion of former grants as had not been 
appropriated, in founding two theological scholarships in 
that college, for the education of missionaries, to bear the 
name of bishop Heber's Missionary Scholarships. It was 
at the same time resolved that a memorial should be pre- 
sented to government and to the Directors of the East 
India Company, representing the necessity of appointing 
more than one bishop to so immense a diocess ; as it is 
impracticable for any prelate to superintend so vast a 
charge, and both bishop Middleton and bishop Heber are 
considered to have sacrificed their lives in the performance 
of duties which they were anxious conscientiously to dis- 
charge. In this memorial the Missionary Society has 
been joined by the Societies for Propagating the Gospel 
and for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and it will no 
doubt have due weight in the quarters to which it has been 
addressed. 

Less has been achieved by the Catholics than by the 
Protestants in the countries of Hindoostan : nay, many of 
the Catholic congregations, which are by far the most nu- 
merous from the river Crishna to Cape Comorin, are in the 
most neglected condition. The chief superintendence of 
the Catholic chiirch in India belongs by right to two arch- 



HINDOOSTAN. 99 

bishops, one of whom at Goa is styled metropolitan and 
primate of the East. The other resides at Cranganore, 
on the coast of Malabar, in the British presidency of Bom- 
bay : but the latter see has been vacant ever since the end 
of the last century, and it has hitherto been under the ad : 
ministration of a vicar-general only, appointed by the me- 
tropolitan of Goa. 

Under these archbishops there are two episcopal sees^ 
that of St. Thomas, near Madras, and that of Cochin : but 
these have also been vacant since the beginning of this 
century, and, as it appears, forgotten by the court of Por- 
tugal during the vicissitudes of its fortunes at home. Here 
also vicars-general, appointed by the metropolitan, act as 
substitutes for the bishops. All these prelates have invari- 
ably been nominated by the kings of Portugal, who assert- 
ed their right of patronage over the East India church, and 
even denied permission to other Catholic powers to send 
out missionaries. The Romish Curia, however, regardless 
of this claim, appointed from the first bishops in partibus, 
by the title of vicars-apostolic, who, independent of the 
Portuguese prelates, were subordinate only to the Con- 
gregation for the Propagation of the Faith at Rome. 
There are at present three of these vicars-apostolic, at 
Bombay, at Verapalli in Cochin, and at Pondichery, who 
have under them missionaries for visiting the congrega- 
tions of their diocesses. 

According to the statement of one of these missiona- 
ries, the Abbe Dubois, who had [in IB 16) resided and 
travelled about in India for the space of twenty-five years, 
about four-fifths of the population of the Portuguese pos- 
sessions are Christians. Under the immediate superin- 
tendence of the metropolitan of Goa there are about five 
hundred thousand souls, but to these belong also the Ca- 
tholics in the island of Ceylon, about one hundred and 
forty thousand in number, provided with numerous black 
ministers, educated in the seminary at Goa. Upwards of 
two thousand Indo-Christian priests and monks are under 
his control. 

The bishopric of Cranganore, which extends to Madura 
and the banks of the Crishna, numbered so far back as the 
middle of the last century about two hundred thousand 



00 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

converted Hindoos : now there are no more than from 1 
thirty to forty thousand. The bishopric of St. Thomas 
contains about sixty thousand, and that of Cochin only 
thirty thousand. 

Of the three Romish vicars- apostolic, the vicar of Bom- 
bay has scarcely more than ten thousand souls in his dio- 
cess ; the vicar of Pondichery from thirty-four to thirty- 
six thousand, and the vicar of Verapalli eighty thousand 
Christians born. The missionaries of the latter alone con- 
tinue to make converts among the Hindoos, baptizing an- 
nually four or five hundred adult heathen. For this duty 
partly Italian Carmelites and partly native priests are em- 
ployed, in the environs of Verapalli, Cochin, and Tra- 
vancore, on the Malabar coast, the tribe of the Nairs forms 
the greatest part of the population. They are the most 
rigid of all the Hindoos in the observance of the ordinances 
relative to castes, the slightest violation of which entails 
irrevocable expulsion on the offender. This circumstance 
promotes the object of the missionaries. The culprits, 
abandoned by all their friends and clan, have no alterna- 
tive but to perish of hunger or to turn Christians or Mu~ 
hamedans : by far the greater number choose the Koran in 
preference to Christianity ; because the Moslem faith 
grants greater latitude and more temporal indulgence. 

Under an apostolic prefecture, appointed by and de- 
pendent on the Propaganda of Rome, there is also a mis- 
sion of Italian Capuchins at Madras. They number in 
their district about twelve thousand Christians. A cen- 
tury ago the Capuchins penetrated through the heart of 
Hindoostan to Nepnul and Tibet, preaching the cross, but 
to very little purpose : this was also the case with the 
former missions of the French Jesuits and the Portuguese 
A.ugustines. Relics of their activity are still to be seen 
in unfrequented chapels at Agra, Lucknow, Patna, and 
other places, in the province of Bahar. The small con- 
gregations consist not so much of converted Hindoos, as 
descendants of the Portuguese and half-caste persons, 
that is, the offspring of the intermarriages of Europeans 
with Indian women. 

In the province of Tinnevelly, belonging to the Madras 
presidency, the Roman Catholics have fifty-three churches,. 



HINDO0STAN. 101 

(lie congregations of which amount to thirty thousand 
persons. They are divided into eight districts, each of 
which is committed to the charge of a country-born Por- 
tuguese priest, educated at Goa ; but about half these 
districts were vacant in 1822. For these thirty thousand 
souls there is but one school, containing about forty 
scholars. To the ceremonies of the Romish church these 
nominal Christians unite the customs of the heathen, 
drawing the rutt and carrying the images of the saints in 
procession just as the Hindoos do those of their deities. 
The distinction of castes is also observed among them. 

In the same province such extraordinary success has, 
since 1823, attended the labours of the agents of the 
Church Missionary Society, that in September, 1825, they 
had in one hundred and twenty-five villages more than a 
thousand families under Christian instruction. 

The decline of the Catholic church in Hindoostan is 
scarcely so great as the decline of the religious spirit itself 
in its congregations. This the missionaries know and 
deplore. Most of the Catholic Hindoos live in the gross- 
est ignorance. With all the meanness entailed on them 
by their former reprobate 1 castes they generally combine, 
as Christians, the debauchery and licentiousness of the 
dregs of European society. All their piety is confined 
to the observance of a few outward ceremonies, and to 
the recital of a few forms of prayer, which they scarcely 
understand. Of the higher sense of duty, of the elevation 
and sanctification of the heart by the belief in God, they 
have not the slightest notion. They are the same heathen 
as ever, only with the rosary and cross. Saints supply 
to them the places of the old Hindoo deities. A Hindoa 
and a Catholic once came to archdeacon Corrie, at Agra, 
that he might settle a dispute which had arisen between 
them respecting the cause of a recent earthquake. The 
Hindoo swore that the phenomenon was caused by the 
elephant, which bears the earth on his back, lifting up 
one of his legs to rest it. The Christian, on the contrary, 
maintained that it was occasioned by the Virgin Mary's 
transferring the earth from her hand to that of her son. 
in order to take a little repose. 

When Tippoo Sultan set about converting all the inha- 
9* 



102 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

bitants of his dominions to the Koran, he suddenly caused* 
in the year 1784, all the Catholic Christians to be brought 
under a strong escort to Seringapatam. The total num- 
ber, men, women, and children, was near sixty thousand. 
He insisted on their becoming Muhamedans and submit- 
ting to circumcision. The people had no scruple to 
comply with his commands. Not one among these thou- 
sands conceived the idea of dying rather than abjure his 
religion. After Tippoo's downfal the apostates returned 
and reconciled themselves with the Christian church, as- 
serting with Jesuitical cunning, that their recantation was 
but an o.utward show, and that they had never ceased to 
cherish the true faith in their hearts. 

Why Christianity has made so little impression and 
produced so little improvement of the heart in the Catho- 
lic missions, is a problem easy of solution. The Romish 
ministers were in general satisfied with imparting to 
their converts a few obscure notions of God, the Virgin 
Mary, Christ and the Saints, of hell, purgatory, and heaven ; 
they taught them besides to join in a few of the ceremo- 
nies of the church, and the Christian was complete. The 
adults r/emained without further instruction ; the children 
without scholastic education ; and all without Bible or 
book of devotion, whence they might have derived clearer 
conceptions of the nature of the doctrine given to man- 
kind by the Saviour of the world. 

This very depravity of most of the Catholic Hindoos, 
or " Portuguese," as they are called, excites only a hor- 
ror of Christianity in the minds of the unconverted In 
dians ; and hence well-disposed persons, when they have 
the misfortune to be excluded from their caste, betake 
themselves in preference to the religion of the Prophet of 
Mecca. None of those apostates, indeed, are respected 
by the Asiatics. For though these discover falsehood in 
every strange doctrine, still they cannot bestow their con- 
fidence on him who abandons the religion of his ances- 
tors. In foreign creeds they perceive error only, but in 
apostacy a depraved mind, which contaminates itself with 
the guilt of perfidy, or wantonly sports with sacred things. 
But still they judge more indulgently of one who goes 
over to the Koran than of him who assumes the Cross 



HINDOOSTAK. 108 

of the Europeans : the pride of the Hindoo and the Moor 
looks down with contempt on the " Franks," as they are 
termed. These are considered rather as subtle sophists 
than as persons of sound reason, who, to gain money 
and to squander it again, renounce their country and their 
family, justice, truth, and humanity, and carry misery along 
with them wherever they go. 

On the Malabar coast, especially in the territory of 
Travancore, there are still many Jacobites. They are 
commonly called Syrian Christians, partly because they 
use in their liturgy the ancient Syrian language, which is 
no longer spoken by the people, and partly because the 
original seat of their church was in Syria. Their episco- 
pal see of Travancore, to which belong about fifteen thou- 
sand souls, is oneot the twenty-one diocesses subordinate to 
the chair of the patriarch of Der-Zaaferan, in Mesopota- 
mia, whom I have already mentioned in treating of the 
state of Christianity in Asia Minor. Of course the Catho- 
lics and Jacobites in this country heartily despise each 
other, out of pure Christian affection, though they differ 
merely in their tenets respecting certain divine mysteries 
which nobody comprehends For the rest, they closely 
resemble one another in three points — in their hierarchical 
constitution, for the Jacobites also have bishops, priests, 
and inferior clergy ; in their language, as the Catholics 
too employ the ancient Syrian in their churches ; and in 
the ignorance and depravity of both clergy and laity. 

The Jacobites pride themselves, if not on their Chris-, 
tianity, at least on the antiquity of their church, as the first 
Christian church in India. They are not to be persuaded 
that Bar-Thomas, a Syrian, was their apostle : but they 
derive their origin from the disciple of Jesus of the same 
name, from whom they would not on any account with- 
draw the ancient veneration, in order to transfer it to 
Peter and Paul. They go on pilgrimage to St. Thomas, or 
Meliapore, where, as tradition relates, he was put to death 
by the Bramins, and to Maleatore, on the river Feira, in 
the Travancore territory, where he is said to have preached 
and baptized. 

Whatever may be thought of the tradition of these peo- 
ple that the apostle Thomas planted Christianity among 



104 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

them, yet so much may be considered as established be- 
yond contradiction :- that they existed here as a well re- 
gulated church connected with the Syrian church in Per- 
sia so early as the year 535, the period when Cosmas 
travelled to this coast — that at a somewhat later period, 
but certainly prior to the year 825, considerable < uits. 
immunities, and precedences, were conferred on them by 
one ot v the Perumal princes — and that the greater part of 
these privileges have been uninterruptedly enjoyed and 
are now visible among them. Every person of observa- 
tion, visiting the interior of the country, is necessarily led 
to this conclusion He discovers a race of Christians, dif- 
feriag widely in their general manners from the later spe- 
cimens of native converts, who, from the time of the Por- 
tuguese settlements, have been so numerous on the coast — - 
bearing indeed undoubted marks of the Syrian original and 
of the high dignity to which, in former times, they were 
raised — a people, in short, who identify themselves with 
the subjects of the above traditions, and to whom the 
names of Portuguese and Roman Catholics are compara- 
tively new. 

At the time of their first discovery by the Portuguese, 
the Syrian Christians were distinguished by their scrupu- 
lous regard to truth and their general manliness and inde- 
pendence of character, and considered as the chief strength 
of the nations who employed them. Notwithstanding the 
deterioration which has since taken place, the chief causes 
of which are to be referred to the appearance of the Ro- 
man Catholics on these shores, and the contest which this 
church has consequently had to sustain for three centuries 
with the unremitted vigilance, force, and intrigue of a 
usurping and intolerant hierarchy — the mutual fears, suspi- 
cions, and jealousies, fomented by their enemies, and ter- 
minating in a fatal and apparently irreconcileable schism 
in their own body — the destruction of their best ancient 
monuments, during the short calamitous interval in which 
they were all nominally subjected to the papal power — 
together with the interruption of that regular intercourse 
with Syria, on the feeling of which depended that peculiar 
spirit and individuality of character for which they were 
formerly so distinguished — the character of the Syrian 



HINDOOSTAN. 105 

Christians still presents many points of superiority. The 
duplicity and deceit for which the natives of India are pro- 
verbial are not features of their character ; on the contra- 
ry, they possess in no small degree the opposite virtues of 
honesty and plain-dealing, accompanied with a simplicity 
of manner, which distinguish them in the eyes of the stran- 
ger from the other inhabitants of the country. 

It is probable that these people were formerly much 
more numerous than they are at present. They now 
reckon up eighty-eight churches belonging to their body, of 
which fifty-five have maintained their independence of the 
Roman pontiff. The number of families belonging to the 
latter is computed at thirteen thousand. The number of 
officiating priests called catanars, is one hundred and 
forty-four. These are wholly supported by the offerings 
of the laity on festivals, and the administration of the 
occasional rites of the, church, which for the most part 
afford very scanty support 

A desire for the improvement of the state of this church 
has of late years been manifested by its metropolitan, and 
encouraged by the English missionaries at Cotym. His 
objects are more particularly directed to the circulation of 
the Scriptures in the Syriac and vernacular tongues, with 
other works of religious and general information, the 
instruction of the clergy and of youth, and the erection 
and enlargement of churches. The British Government 
and the religious societies have manifested a readiness to 
co-operate in these designs, which promise to be produc- 
tive of the most beneficial results. Major Monro, resi- 
dent of the East India Company at Travancore, conceived 
in 1815 the plan of erecting a school for the education of 
Syrian priests and laymen at Cotym, in the territory of 
Travancor, and with the aid of the British Missionary 
Societies he carried it into execution. Here Priests and 
catanars, or inferior ecclesiastics, receive instruction in 
the Syrian language. A press for printing Syrian Bibles 
has also been established. Thus, perhaps, that difference 
between Catholics and Jacobites, which, centuries ago, 
synods vainly attempted to do away with, may ultimately 
he removed by social education. 



106 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

It is a remarkable fact, that before Europeans had set 
foot on Hither India, there existed a small flock of Chris- 
tians in the midst of inimical Bramins and Muhamedans, 
and that it had maintained its< If there upwards of fourteen 
centuries. Though at last ail that remained of its reli- 
gion was a confused medlev of superstitious notions and 
ceremonies, still if, adhered to them with invincible con- 
stancy. But, with the i*>n .sant, prejudice and custom 
are the substitutes for conviction, and are therefore as dif- 
ficult to be eradicated as the latter. Hence it is, that 
many religions of antiquity and many churches still sub- 
sist, though the more holy spirit in which they originated 
has long been extinct. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE PERSIAN CHRISTIANS — ZABEANS — SUFFAS. 

The religion of the Prophet of Mecca, widely as it is 
diffused throughout Asia, and zealously as it is supported 
by its professors, has not less degenerated and declined 
in this quarter of the globe than the religion of Jesus. 
Those are nevertheless egre^iously mistaken, who, swayed 
bv partiality or. inspire by the divinity of the Christian 
faith, hope to propagate it with the greater facility among 
the Muhamedans, the ruder the religious notions of the 
latter may be. 

In Persia the Zabeans formed long since a sort of in- 
termediate link between the Christians and the Muhame- 
dans. We are yet but very imperfectly acquainted with 
the origin and history of these people, who are usually 
considered as one of the s.^cts which have sprung from 
Islamism. They reverence in fact the Prophet of Mecca 
and many of his institutions, because they deny not that 
God has revealed himself to the human race at different 
times and under various circumstances by means of dele- 
gates : but they attach no merit to pilgrimages to the holv 



PERSIA. 107 

iomb. They assert that John the Baptist was their origi- 
nal teacher, and practise baptism as well as circumcision, 
They are acquainted With the Lord's Supper, and pay 
devotion to the cross : — indeed they have borrowed some- 
thing from all the religions which at different times have 
prevailed in Persia. Still there is no way less likely for 
effecting a union between Muhamedans and Christians 
than through the gates of the Zabean Church. 

The Christians of Persia held in the same contempt 
there as the Jews in ot'ier countries, belong to the Arme- 
nian church, which has degenerated not less than the 
Greek under Turkish dominion. In former times, Rome 
sent missionaries, not sp much for the conversion of those 
who were not Christians, as to bring about a union of 
the Armenians with the chair. of St. Peter, Their efforts 
were partially successful Those who joined the Catholic 
, church have their Archbishop at Nakshivan in the pro- 
vince of Erivan, and the others their patriarch, the 
;; Hugas Kathaltos, 1 ' at Edschmiassin. 

This patriarch — in the year 1817, his name was Efrem 
— has about three hundred monks in his convent at the 
foot of Mount Ararat, the lofty summit of which is cover- 
ed with everlasting sncw. The Christian villages belong- 
ing to the convent were wealthy ; but the monastery 
itself has been gradually so impoverished by the extortions 
of the Persian governor of the province of Erivan, that 
it has nothing left but its relics, such as the spear which 
pierced the side of our Saviour, a piece of the wood of 
Noah's ark, which was brought to St. Gregory, when 
asleep, and the like. K otzebue, in his Narrative of the 
Journey of the Russian Embassy to Persia, relates vari- 
ous particulars respecting this convent which excite our 

It is a long" time since any thing was heard of Catholic 
missions in Persia. So much the more strenuous are the 
efforts of the British and Russian Bible Societies and Mis- 
sionary Institutions, to counteract the Koran, or at least 
to purify the corrupt faith of tbe Armenians by circula- 
ting the original records of * hristianity in Persian and 
Armenian translations The provinces latterly ceded by 
Persia to Russia afford a sufficient field for their activity 



108 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But large quantities of Bibles have been already sent into 
the heart of Iran, or Persia Proper ; and the number of 
merchants, or travelling literati who annually visit Astra- 
can, amounting in a year to several thousand, contribute 
not a little to spread the sacred Scriptures of the Christians. 
These, indeed, are well known even at the court of the 
Shah himself. According to the assurance of Dr. Camp- 
bell, who resided several years at the Court of Teheran, 
and was at Petersburg in 1816, but returned to Persia, 
the heir apparent to the throne could repeat whole pas- 
sages of the New Testament by heart. 

From the last report of the British and Foreign School 
Society, we learn that during the late visit to the East of 
the Rev. Joseph Wolff, whose efforts are more particu- 
larly directed to the conversion of Jews, a strong desire 
was expressed in Persia to receive competent teachers 
from England, and assurances were given by various indi- 
viduals of the highest rank that they would support and 
patronize them. A meeting was in consequence held in 
London, in March, 1827, and a|Committee formed and a 
subscription opened, for the purpose of " sending out 
pious and well qualified teachers to prepare the way for 
the Holy Scriptures" in this country. 

We must beware, however, of inferring too much from 
these circumstances. Setting aside that Muhamedans, if 
they were to apostatize from Islamism, would be perse- 
cuted with mortal rancour by the professors of their for- 
mer faith, it is no easy matter to render much in the 
church ceremonies and subtle dogmas of the Christian 
parties acceptable to them. Persians of education, Mu- 
hamedans of reflecting minds, have no hesitation to ad- 
mit the superiority of the pure, spiritual truths of Chris- 
tianity, such as Jesus himself taught, to the 'precepts of 
the Koran, which flatter the passions and rather address 
themselves to what is earthly. But, there are points in 
our tenets, which they regard with much the same kind of 
look as a staunch Catholic would cast at a zealous Cal- 
vinist of Geneva^ who Should inculcate the doctrine of 
elective grace, or a well informed Protestant if a Capu- 
chin were to threaten him with purgatory. 

The more enlightened Persians entertain just as little 



CEYLON. 10b* 

reverence for the doctrines and miracles of Islamismc 
There are thousands among them who, without publicly 
abjuring the Prophet, find the whole substance of their 
faith and peace of mind in the adoration of the one 
Supreme God, and in the fulfilment of their duties to Hirn 
and to their fellow-creatures. But they take good care to 
conceal their real sentiments within their own breasts, lest 
they should expose themselves to the anathemas of the 
vulgar and of the priests. They are, nevertheless, known 
in Persia, and are called Suflfas -philosophers, or free 
thinkers. They are in Persia much the same as the fol- 
lowers of Confutse in China, the Siutos in Japan, and 
the most enlightened of the Catholics, Protestants, and 
Jews, in Europe. The latter, as it is well known, receive 
precisely the same name from the other members of the 
religion to which they belong. There is but little differ- 
ence between the Asiatic and European vulgar, and pro- 
bably just as little between the common herd of priests, 
Rabbis, Muftis, Bramins, Bonzes, Gylongs, Talapoin?, 
s&c. in both parts of the world. 



CHAPTER X. 

"'CEYLON AND JAVA ST \TE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE 

OTHER LARGE ASIATIC ISLANDS. 

We now proceed to take a survey of the Asiatic islands, 
Among the thousands of islands which begird the con- 
tinent of Asia, Ceylon, with its three hundred thousand 
inhabitants, is particularly remarkable in a religious point 
of view. The Indians, as well beyond as on this side of 
the Ganges, and even the Christians of St. Thomas, have 
from the remotest antiquity regarded this island with pecu- 
liar veneration. The Malabars call' it Lanca, or the 
Holy Land. The range of mountains which intersects 
Ceylon is crowned by the lofty Talmala and Hamalet, 
which are visible at sea to a great distance. Here, at the 

10 



110 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sources of three rivers, according to the notions of the 
Hindoos, God created the progenitor of the human race, 
and buried him at his death. From this island came, ac- 
cording to the obscure traditions of Farther India, the 
belief in Buddha, or Budh, which extends over by far 
the greater part of Asia. Buddha, say the priests of 
Ceylon, has already appeared four times in the world, 
the fourth time as a man, born of a virgin. His religion 
shall prevail five thousand years, and then a fifth Buddha 
will reveal himself. 

Justice and wisdom are called the main pillars of the 
religion of Buddha. The people, especially those of the 
lowest castes, are nevertheless demoralized and depraved, 
and in the higher castes frequently unbelieving or skep- 
tical. Owing to the prodigious multitude of inferior dei- 
ties, many of the Bramins feel themselves in danger of 
ultimately neither having, nor believing in, any God at 
all. In Ceylon the Priests reckon up 1 20,535 gods. The 
polytheism of ancient Rome was a trifle compared with 
this. Enjoying a delicious climate and a soil of extraor- 
dinary fertility, the people are indolent both in body and 
mind. The cocoa- tree is a generous nurse of sloth ; a 
garden of moderate size planted with this tree supplies 
most of the necessaries of life, furnishing food, drink, 
oil, shelter, fuel, and wood for building. 

There is a tradition, which is said to be derived from 
the sacred books of the Cingalese, that from the West 
there shall come to Ceylon a new religion, which shall be 
adopted by all >n inkind. Of this notion the Christian 
missionaries might long since have availed themselves in 
preaching the doctrine of Jesus ; but that point they seem 
to have entirely overlooked. 

The first European conquerors of Ceylon, the Portu- 
guese, converted, in Muhamed's manner, with the sword. 
The words of the priests who offered baptism, cross, rosa- 
ry, and all tiie pomp of the Roman Catholic worship, were 
enforced by the thunder of cannon directed against the 
temples of the ancient gods Many of the terror-stricken 
Cingalese embraced the Catholic religion, without know- 
ing any thing of the faith which Christ had revealed. 

When the Dutch, in the beginning of the seventeenth 



CEYLON. Ill 

century, made themselves masters of this extensive island, 
they built many churches and schools. Their ministers 
insisted less on the observance of empty ceremonies than 
holiness of life ; but those who came after them were fre- 
quently destitute of the noble spirit which actuated their 
predecessors. Many of them, addicted to drunkenness, 
lust, or other vices, set bad examples to the Cingalese. 
Thousands of the latter nevertheless solicited baptism, be- 
cause, by virtue of a law, none but baptized Christians 
could hold public situations. It was to these posts that 
the Cingalese aspired, much more than to the acquisition 
of a Christian spirit and sentiments. The image of Buddha 
was secretly preserved in their hearts and in their habita- 
tions. 

The Dutch were, at length dispossessed by the Englishc 
but they did still less to enlighten the minds of the Cinga- 
lese than their predecessors. The diamonds, pearls, tin, 
and gold of Ceylon were of more importance io its new 
masters than any other consideration. Thus the good 
effected at an earlier period sank back into the slough of 
ancient paganism. 

In the time of the Dutch there were still between three 
and four hundred idol temples in Ceylon; in 1807, they 
had increased to more than twelve hundred. In the year 
1663, there were sixty-five thousand Christians in the dis- 
trict of Jaffna, which in 1814 contained scarcely five thou- 
sand. It is evident, therefore, that great numbers of the 
baptized natives must have returned to the paganism of 
their ancestors, which they had not renounced from con- 
viction. According to a recent calculation, the total 
number of Protestant natives amounts to about one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand, and that of the Roman Catholic 
to about fifty thousand : but how many of these Catholics 
and Protestants are Christians we know not. 

The pagan Cingalese are brutal in their appetites, faith- 
less, violent, and superstitious in the extreme. — A piece 
of thread tied round the arm is their preservation from 
disease, or a ring of iron their protection from evil spirits, 
who, they suppose, have a peculiar dread of that metal. 
Others have a small brass tube, containing some sort of 
medicine, fastened in a band round the waist, and this they 



112 SURVEY OF CHKISTIANITV.- 

expect to act as a spell and to remove the most obstinate 
malady. Their whole religion embraces but two objects — 
deliverance from temporal evils and security of temporal 
prosperity. To ensure deliverance they have recourse to 
the means already mentioned — to obtain security they 
make vows and oblations. Thus, previous to the time of 
harvest, while the paddy or rice crop is in blossom, they 
form long bands with the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, and 
with these they surround a portion of the field. In the 
centre of this circle, a lamp, filled with the expressed oil of 
a single cocoa-nut, is set up. This is lighted at night and 
an assurance given to persons called cappoowah that, 
when the crop is gathered in, a portion shall be given 
away in the name of the god of Kattnagamme ; trusting 
that in consequence of this vow they shall be effectually 
preserved from blight and mildew. Should this, however, 
not be the case, the priest has always an excuse ready, and 
pretends that there was some mistake in the performance 
of the ceremony. After the gathering of the harvest, the 
friends of the person are invited, rice is distributed among 
the guests, and an oblation of money presented to the 
cappoowah. This ceremony always takes place by night, 
the darkness serving not only to cloak the gross imposi- 
tion, but to add solemnity and awe to the proceedings. 
When a person erects a new dwelling, before he will ven- 
ture to reside in it, he calls the people together and holds 
a dance to propitiate the evil spirits ; for without this he 
\vould live in continual dread of lightning, fire, or earth- 
quake. 

Most of the Portuguese, or Catholics, are not behind 
the pagan Cingalese in depravity, and the majority of the 
Protestants but little better. Such is the result of the con- 
current testimony of the later travellers. 

In 1815 the English reduced the territories of the King 
of Candi, the only prince in the island who had till then 
maintained his independence. Thus the whole of Ceylon 
became British property. Since that time a new zeal for 
the melioration of the moral and religious state of its in- 
habitants has been kindled. To this laudable object Sir 
Alexander Johnston, when Chief Justice and first member 
of his majesty's council of Ceylon, essentially contributed. 



SUMATRA BANCA BOKNEO. 1 W 

the reception of the sacred volume on the coast of Su- 
matra. A version of the Scriptures in the Batta language 
is preparing by one of the missionaries, and will be 
adopted by the Netherlands Bible Society ; while the low 
Malay translation, upon which another of these labourers 
is engaged, will probably be transferred to Singapore ; 
the above-mentioned Society not being in a situation to 
undertake both. A third, a member of the Baptist 
mission, who was compelled by civil commotions among 
the natives to quit his station, had begun the compilation of 
an English, Malay, and Batta Dictionary, after having 
completed a translation of the Gospel of St. John. The 
Netherlands Missionary Society also has directed its 
attention to Sumatra, and sent out missionaries to prose- 
cute the good work commenced by their British prede- 
cessors. 

The island of Banca, celebrated for its tin mines and 
situated near Sumatra, lies desolate, notwithstanding the 
fertility of its soil. It is valued solely on accouut of its 
tin, the mines of which are wrought by emigrants from 
China. The Dutch and English have hitherto purposely 
prevented the instruction of the people and the culture of 
the soil, to keep the inhabitants of Banca dependent for 
their provisions on Java or the commercial town of Palem- 
bang. The villages are embosomed in prodigious woods, 
and Minto, the capital, is a rambling place. The abori- 
ginal inhabitants, mostly pagans, are either Onmg- 
Gunangs, that is, mountaineers, of Malay extraction, as 
their language seems to indicate, or Orang-Lauts, or sea- 
faring people, who reside on the coast. The Chinese, 
upwards of four thousand of whom dwell on the island, 
and the Malays, are foreigners. 

The population of Borneo, the largest of the Asiatic 
islands, like that of Celebes and Macassar, is on the 
coasts exclusively devoted to Tslamism, and in the interior 
to paganism. Here, as in Sumatra, human victims are 
still sacrificed by the barbarous inhabitants at weddings 
and on other occasions, before the faces, as it were, of 
the Europeans. No native of the West has yet come 
hither for the benevolent purpose of making men ac- 
quainted with the true God and their eternal destination. 



118 SURVEY OF CHKISTIANITY. 

Here the Christians are traders and nothing but tra- 
ders. 

But I shall not treat of countries to which the voice of 
a better religion has never penetrated, or I should have to 
mention many thousands of the yet unnumbered islands 
of Asia. For this reason I shall confine my remarks to 
those to which the Gospel has been carried. 

In the Molucca Islands, amounting to about one 
hundred, the present number of Christian inhabitants is 
computed at upwards of twenty thousand — a small number 
compared with the vast multitude who live in a state of 
moral darkness under the brilliant sun of the Spice 
Islands. A laudable beginning has, however, been made 
by the Dutch to enlighten the minds of the natives. In 
Amboyna and Banda British missionaries have been 
settled ever since the year 1814, They made it their first 
care to supply the place of teachers to the long neglected 
congregations, to which belonged about eighteen thousand 
Christians, and to procure for them Bibles in their native 
languages printed at Calcutta, In Amboyna itself a 
Bible Society has been formed for the circulation of the 
sacred Scriptures, which in the year 1815 collected four 
thousand dollars for that purpose. There are also semina- 
ries for training up young men as schoolmasters for the 
neighbouring islands, and as assistants to the missionaries 
sent out by the Netherlands Missionary Society to Am- 
boyna, Banda, Bouro, Celebes, Seram, Kaybobo, Ternate, 
and Timor ; and a printing- press has been established to 
facilitate their operations. The attention of that Society 
begins also to be directed to some of these islands which 
are not subject to the Netherlands government, and to 
which labourers will probably be despatched as soon as 
they can be spared. Tn the island of Gilolo are still to 
be found traces, though indeed very faint ones, of the 
religion formerly preached by the Jesuits. The triumph 
with which the Jesuits proclaimed the conversion of Ynka- 
Kassel, the king of that island, to Christianity, in 1750, 
his being baptized by the bishop of Manilla, his assuming 
the name of Ferdinand, in honour of the King of Spain, 
his dismissing forty -eight of his wives, his destroying all 
the pagodas, and building a Christian church, was of 
short duration. Ynka-Kassel, a crafty and ambitious 



PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 119 

prince, had no other view in this farce than to win the 
confidence of the Spanish viceroy, and to secure his aid 
for the reduction of the neighbouring islands. Failing in 
this scheme, he pursued a different course ; and the result 
was, that the Spaniards made war upon him and took him 
prisoner. In many other of the Spice Islands attempts at 
conversion had been made at an earlier period by Catholic 
missionaries, and often unsuccessfully. In the year 1739, 
Father Leo de St. Joseph, missionary in Tidor, was 
quartered by the natives and his head carried about on a 
spear. A year later, Father Hippolyt was dragged away 
by the savages and never more heard of. 

The state of Christianity is more flourishing, to outward 
appearances at least, in the Manilla or Philippine islands. 
This is chiefly owing to the efforts that have been made 
for some centuries past by the great missionary institutions 
at Rome. So far back as in the year 1721, the rich and 
populous capital, Manilla, containing about ninety thou- 
sand inhabitants, was erected into the see of an archbishop, 
who has under him three episcopal diocesses. The mis- 
sionaries were indefatigable in extending the ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction over the ten thousand islands of the Philippine 
Archipelago : but they proceeded too precipitately in the 
work of conversion. They seemed to be more solicitous 
to swell the number than to enlighten the minds of their 
proselytes. Thus the Augustine friars boasted, in the 
year 1734, that they had converted and baptized the 
whole nation of the Isinagas. Accounts were afterwards 
received that the savages had risen, plundered the convents, 
carried off the sacred utensils, and forced the Christians 
to betakfe themselves to the mountains to save their misera- 
ble lives. 

This insecurity continued in some of the islands down 
to the nineteenth century. In the mountainous Bagabag, 
one of the Philippines, there were in 1819 about thirteen 
hundred converts under the direction of Friars Preachers : 
but none of them could stir a mile from the fort without 
running the risk of being surprised and murdered by the 
savage Scorrotai, who dwell in the interior of the country, 
and are reported to drink the blood of their enemies and 
to decorate their huts with their sculls. 



l&O SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

It may easily be conceived that the Christianity of men 
so hastily converted must be of a rude stamp, and that, 
owing to the want of good institutions for the instruction 
of the people, it must remain so. We cannot be astonish- 
ed to learn, that in many places where the authority of the 
Spaniards is feeble, the usages and deities of paganism 
are retained together with the Christian ceremonies, and 
that infants born with any deformity are still put to death, 
as for instance in the island of Paragaor Palawan. It is 
well known that of late years many of the inhabitants of the 
coast have solicited baptism, merely to secure Spanish pro- 
tection against the attacks of tiie black mountaineers, or to 
obtain a license to drink wine and eat pork, which the rigour 
of the Koran prohibits. For the rest, even in places where 
Christianity has become universal, religion seems to be.but 
a sort of ecclesiastical police transferred to civil life.. 

Depages, who, in his voyage round the world, towards 
the conclusion of the eighteenth century, resided a con- 
siderable time in Samar, the easternmost of the Philip- 
pines, draws an animated picture of the state of Christianity 
there, and of the relation in which the clergy stand to 
the people. These, says he, who converted the inhabitants 
and made them subject to the Spanish crown, exercise 
almost unlimited authority over them. They punish the 
slightest fault with stripes,, and it is not uncommon for 
priests to apply the rod to the bare bodies of females^ 
married and single. The offenders — so completely are 
the minds of the Indians under the control of their 
spiritual guides — meekly submit to these chastisements ; 
convinced of their justice, they thank the Father for them 
and rarely fall again into the same fault. These punish- 
ments are inflicted publicly, and are not disgraceful, 
because each knows that perhaps the very next day they 
may be his portion. All are alike subject to them — old 
men and young, women, girls, children, without distinc- 
tion of rank, age, or sex. In confession the priest is 
made acquainted with every thing. The Indian frankly 
reveals to him his most secret thoughts. Thus the priest 
becomes his adviser. He punishes, but sometimes too he 
rewards with medicines, wine, brandy, and meat. He is the 
general father, overseer, and judge of his flock, and the 



JAVA. & i 

leader in war, by sea and by land. The priest is at the same 
time the governor of the fort of his parish ; he provides it 
with ammunition, appoints officers, sends out detachments* 
equips vessels for war, and frequently takes the command 
of the troops in person. Divine service is performed twice 
a week, besides festivals, with due solemnity, and accompa- 
nied with pleasing music, but quite in the Spanish style. 
On high festivals, the colours of the Blessed Virgin, St. 
Ignatius, St. Francis, and other saints, are hoisted on the 
turrets of the fort, and saluted at sunrise and sunset with 
discharges of artillery. 

The total number of Christians in the Philippines, com- 
puted in 1317 in 1,800,000, are divided into between four 
and five thousand parishes. The Dominican friars alone 
supply fifty-nine of these parishes and many other 
missions, in which in the year 1818 there were 153,251 
souls. A great want of persons qualified to preach the 
Gospel is felt here, and for this reason the Dominicans in 
Spain are continually exhorted to repair hither to assist in 
the good work. The secular clergy in tife Philippines are 
Indians and Mestizes, the monks alone Europeans. The 
bishops are, therefore, necessitated to confer ordination on 
people of all professions, who cannot earn a subsistence in 
any other wav. 



CHAPTER XI. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS OK THE SLOW PROGRESS OF 
CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA. 

When I once more cast a look back at Asia — the finest 
and the richest portion of the globe, in comparison with 
which Europe is a very poor country, with a population 
inferior by three-fifths — at Asia, the cradle of the most 
widely diffused religions — I remark with painful surprise 
its moral and religious degradation. But a very small 
nortion of its inhabitants profess the Christian faith ; and 

11 



*22 SURVEY OF CHRISTlAOTTYr 

but a very small portion of the Christians treasure in their 
hearts the highest goods of man, the eternal truths revealed 
through Jesus. That grand idea, the unity of God, is 
indeed proclaimed by Jews, Muhamedans, and Bramins, 
by priests of Fo and of the Lamas, of Kaka and Buddha, 
but disfigured by the wild dreams of barbarians. Regions 
of immeasurable extent, islands, the multitude of which 
has never been numbered, lie buried in the darkness of 
paganism. Man has there but higher natural talents, not 
higher rights, than the brute. Chicanery and unprincipled 
power hold the place of law ; despotism and slavery that 
of social order. What man himself is, such has he made 
his deity. Is he a brute ? — his idol is a Satan. The altars 
of a horrible creed drip with human gore : and that which 
is never done by ravenous beasts to others of their kind 
but in the desperation of hunger, is done by men from a 
religious motive — they devour one another I 

In every noble mind such scenes have in all ages excited 
a holy indignation and the thought * This ought not to be.' 
This indignation springs from the three highest wishes of 
the spiritual world, which are — more profound knowledge 
of the Deity, perfection of our nature in an eternal exist- 
ence, and the union of all mankind into one family around 
the one God. 

The little progress of Christianity in Asia, in spite 01 
the labours of the pious heralds who have proclaimed it 
there, cannot but occasion surprise. Why is its course 
so tardy ? — Before the period of the migration of the 
Asiatic nations it was more rapid and mighty. It then 
penetrated through all the Tartaries to the heart of China. 
It penetrated to the Indies. Were the preachers of the 
Gospel in those days possessed of other means than those 
of our times, who are seconded by money, superior know- 
ledge and attainments, even succours from the temporal 
power, and the circulation of the Holy Scriptures in all 
languages ? — Or have the modern Asiatics less suscepti- 
ble minds ? are their political institutions more hostile to 
better notions than they then were ? By no means. Hu- 
man nature is still the same, and more hostile institutions 
exist not at this day than those were which Christ and his 
first disciples had to encounter : and yet the multitude of 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON ASIA, 123 

missionaries now employed effect not in a whole genera- 
tion a hundredth part of what in those times one messenger 
of the divine master sometimes accomplished in a single 
day, 

For this reason many have, indeed, believed that Chris- 
tianity was propagated in the first ages by supernatural 
means, and that a divine power supported its first preach- 
ers. But why should God be at this day less with Christ 
than formerly ? — Assuredly he is as much so now as he 
was then. 

The truth is, that we no longer possess the Christian 
religion in the same original purity as the early disciples 
of Jesus. Protestants, Catholics, and Greeks preach 
many things which Christ did not preach ; and because 
ye do not dispense that which is divine, free from your 
earthly additions, there is much less of the power of God 
in what you preach. The earthly is overcome by the 
power of what is earthly, by the institutions, manners, and 
prejudices, which ye assail with it. 

In the discourses of Christ, as in all doctrinal precepts, 
we must distinguish between their spirit and their form, 
or what he taught, and how he taught, agreeably to the 
preliminary knowledge and the manners of his age. What 
he taught was truths which manifest themselves with irre- 
sistible power, and communicate, as it were, something 
divine to the minds of mortals : but the manner in which 
Christ taught was determined by the previous notions of 
the Jews. On this account he delivered himself in the 
figurative language of the East. 

Had Christ appeared among the Indians on the Ganges 
or in China, the spirit of his doctrine would indeed have 
been the same, but the form would have differed. In that 
case he would not have said any thing concerning Mosaic 
sacrifices, or the words of the prophets, or devils, which 
were unknown in China and Hindoostan ; but he would 
have adapted his doctrine to their existing notions and pre- 
judices. Thus Paul used a different language in address- 
ing the more enlightened Greeks at Athens, before the 
altar of the unknown God, from that which he employed 
at Jerusalem before the priests of the Mosaic dispensation. 

Unfortunately, errors of incalculable consequence were 



124 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

committed in the very first ages of Christianity \ for those 
who trod in the footsteps of the earliest apostles adhered, 
out of pious affection and reverence for their predecessors, 
to every thing without distinction which originated with 
them. Thus the immaterial and accidental were not less 
dear to them than the essential. They retained the warm 
Imagery of the East in the cooler regions of the West, and 
preached the Gospel of Christ to heathen in language suit- 
able for Jews. Hence false notions and misconceptions 
arose among nations which were strangers to Judaism. 
These misconceptions produced new definitions ; but the 
expounders and commentators, mostly belonging to other 
countries and ages, involuntarily mingled with them their 
own opinions. The barbarism of the era of the migration 
of nations likewise contributed its crude ideas, so that the 
simplest things were rendered complex, the clearest ob- 
scure, and the spirit was neglected and forgotten amid 
disputes about forms. Thus, from a medley of Jewish, 
Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Gothic, and Gallic notions, 
sprang a system of religion which has strangely enough 
united the grossest superstition of western paganism with 
the imagery of the East and the hair-splitting subtleties of 
the schools. 

With this system the missionaries of our times belong- 
ing to the different churches journey to the nations of dis- 
tant parts of the globe. Confirmed in notions current for 
a thousand years past, they deem what is said concerning 
Christ and his person more important than what he him- 
self taught : for they unfortunately believe that what Christ 
taught, when stripped of what he said with reference to 
Jewish notions, is too simple, too self-evident, too palpa- 
ble, to every human understanding. 

Mistaken men !: — to dream that they are wiser than their 
Divine Master, though he revealed that very doctrine of 
God, of eternity, and of the destination and duties of man, 
with greater clearness, connectedness, and completeness, 
than had ever been done before ; who had made the pro- 
clamation of these very truths to the human race, in order 
to its melioration and union with God, the business of his 
ife— to imagine that they are wiser than He, who most 
strenuously inculcated these very truths, because they were 



GENERAL OBSEBVATIONS ON ASIA. 125 

encumbered or extinguished by religious ceremonies, the 
speculations of priests, and the legends of Judaism and 
paganism — truths, to this day obscured by ecclesiastical 
dogmas, but which every childlike understanding may 
comprehend, and the infinite depth of which human'wisdom 
can never fathom — truths by which alone the spirit of man 
can sanctify and exalt itself, as Jesus Christ was holy and 
exalted ! 

It is one of the prodigious errors of men in ancient and 
modern times, to give to the highest that Jesus taught the 
name of natural religion — as if there could be any other 
nature besides the divine nature. — But it is this religion 
which Jesus has revealed. It is the primitive religion : 
not that it is the most ancient, (for so clearly as it was 
revealed by Christ it never was revealed before) but it is 
the stock and root, the essence of all the religions of man- 
kind. The Chinese in Java had a presumption of this 
when he said to the Christian missionary : tfc I verily be- 
lieve that all the religions in the world are scions of one 
and the same radical truth!" This radical truth Jesus 
drew forth out of darkness. 

When, therefore, missionaries repair to foreign nations 
not with those primitive truths, but with what men of a 
later period have conjectured and taught concerning Jesus, 
they carry to them not divine, but human doctrines. No 
wonder that they labour to no purpose, or reap but little 
fruit ; that the wiser pagan smiles contemptuously at the 
mythology of the Christian church as an ill-invented fable, 
and the rude idolater finds the traditions of his ancestors 
more intelligible than the abstruse dogmas of strangers. 
No wonder that when heathen are induced by earthly 
means, by persuasions, gifts, hopes, or fears, to be baptized, 
the new religion does not rnake them better men. No 
wonder that the converts as readily exchange again the 
newly learned practices and doctrines for those to which 
they were previously accustomed. 

Whether missionaries be sent to the devout Tibetians, 
or to the wise disciples of Confutse, to the Bramins wedded 
to their ancient religion, or to the cannibals of Sumatra ; 
the primitive religion of Jesus, wherever it is preached in 
its purity, will strike every being endued with reason by 

H* 



126 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

its irresistible truth : for it sheds a light upon all minds, 
and delightfully solves every enigma of life to the doubting 
spirits of the more cultivated. But preach not the Gospel 
to Indians and Tartars as if they were Jews. Therein 
consisted the wonderful efficacy of the divine word' in the 
first ages, before it became entangled in the net of later 
dogmatism ; therein the power of the preaching of the 
apostles, who, though illiterate men, knew more of what 
was high and holy than the most learned of their times. 
They imparted convictions which could not be forgotten, 
but which changed the nature of the person so convinced 
and made him a new creature. 

If we look at the missionaries as they really are, we 
soon perceive the reason why their labour has in a great 
measure proved abortive. Those of the Catholic and 
Greek church, being frequently more solicitous about out- 
ward ceremonies than holiness of life, have in their zeal 
not rarely forgotten that love which they should have 
inculcated. Instead of setting the consciences of men at 
liberty, they brought from Europe new restraints upon 
them* They contented themselves with destroying idols 
of wood and stone, but knew not how to exterminate 
those which held possession of the mind. Paul did not 
overthrow the altar of the unknown God at Athens ; but 
lie enlightened the minds of the idolaters, so that they left 
their temples to crumble to ruin of themselves. Monks 
brought the jealousy of their orders with them from Europe 
to distant parts of the globe, and thereby rendered them- 
selves a scandal and a scoff to the nations which they 
attempted to convert. They often sought to enchant the 
vulgar by religious pomp ; but took no pains to lead their 
minds into the proper track. 

The Protestant missionaries pursued a contrary course. 
Clinging not less closely to dogmas which are authorized 
by symbolical books, and deviating widely from the spirit 
of their Luther and Zuingli, and still more from that of 
the Redeemer, they aspired nevertheless to greater sim- 
plicity in faith, doctrine, and life ; especially the Moravian 
brethren, the Methodists, and the like. Too frequently, 
however, has their religious spirit, especially that of the 
latter, degenerated too much into a transient excitement 



GENERAL 0BSEUVATI0NS ON ASIA. 127 

of the imagination and feelings. Their missionaries went 
forth among the heathen with a much stronger love for 
Jesus than for what is divine, and sought to enkindle in 
them the like flames of love for the Saviour, and thereby 
for all that is good and virtuous. 

Far be it from me to censure the course which they 
pursued, though it was not adopted by any of the great 
apostles : there are many ways that conduct to the light, 
and every one that leads to God is entitled to my reve- 
rence ; besides, they have individually gained many a 
soul with which they harmonized. But great effect supon 
nations were and are the less to be expected from them, 
as they have frequently been deficient in the requisite pre- 
paration and in knowledge of the world, or rather in the 
divine wisdom which Jesus imparted in his instructions to 
the disciples, by means of which these were enabled to 
furnish even the most learned of their times with the key 
to the mystery of the everlasting world of spirits. 

Thus neither Protestants nor Catholics have, by" the 
labour of ages, produced the effects which they intended. 
To crown the folly, it has moreover happened, that Ca- 
tholic missionaries have made a merit of attempting the 
conversion of Protestants ; and vice versa that Protestants 
have exerted themselves to make proselytes from among 
Christians of the Romish church. 

Be this as it may, there have been among both Catho- 
lic and Protestant missionaries of every age superior men 
— men who have lived, and taught, and suffered, with a 
spirit worthy of the first ages of Christianity. Their holy 
labours are still continued. With admiration I contem- 
plate their fortitude, their discretion, their sacrifice of self. 
and their success in humanizing savage hordes. Verily 
not one of your mightiest monarchs, not one of your most 
renowned heroes, has ever done better service than these 
men of God have rendered to mankind. 



PART THE THIRD, 



AFRICA. 
CHAPTER L 

&ISE AND DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THIS QUARTER 0* 
THE GLOBE. 

The immense region of wonders, beneath the glowing 
atmosphere of which all the powers of Nature are in a 
higher state of fermentation — Africa — the country of the 
most gigantic animals and plants, rich in gold, incense, 
perfumes, and dyeing woods—is little better known at the 
present day than it was thousands of years since. We 
are acquainted with scarcely a fifth part of it. Of the in- 
terior and of its inhabitants we know next to nothing : — 
and yet this quarter of the globe is not so far distant from 
Europeans as Asia, and it has had from the remotest ages 
as close an intercourse with them as the latter. 

Even the north coast of Africa, along the Mediterra- 
nean Sea, over against Europe, which in the time of 
ancient Rome was considered rather as a portion of our 
own than of a different quarter of the world, is now with- 
drawn from its old connexion. The traitorous policy, or 
the cowardice, of the European naval powers, has per- 
mitted those luxuriant coasts, those fertile plains, to be 
for ages the seat and harbour of unprincipled pirates, 
whose barbarous pride delights in the humiliation of 
European princes and the maltreatment of their subjects. 
Shall the civilization of Europe never be restored there ? 
Is it so difficult a task to tame those demi-savages, though 
Rome of old subdued the infinitely more powerful rival 



AFRICA. 129 

state of Carthage ; and though the rude tribe of Vandals, 
after exchanging the German shores of the Baltic for 
Spain, made themselves masters in a short time of the 
whole country from Tangier to Tripoli ? Egypt, again, 
the cradle of ancient wisdom — into what profound degra- 
dation and barbarism is she not sunk ! 

It is not to be doubted that, in the very same century 
as the Messiah appeared, disciples of his found their way 
to Egypt, even though the statement of Eusebius and 
Jerome, that Mark, the evangelist, was the founder of 
the congregation at Alexandria, is not to be proved. In 
the Holy Scriptures themselves, however, we find mention 
made of the residence of professors of Jesus in the north 
of Africa, at Cyrene, in Cyprus, Crete, and the islands of 
the Egean sea. Pantaenus, the philosopher, was in the 
second, and the zealous Origen in the third century, the 
glory of the flourishing Christian church of Alexandria. 
From that city the faith penetrated into the deserts of 
Thebais, the first haunts of Christian monarchism, and 
through Nubia to Abyssinia, to one of its principal cities, 
called Axum, where Frumentius, the Egyptian, first 
preached the gospel of Jesus. 

After Constantine had decreed from the imperial throne 
that Christianity should be the religion of the Roman 
world, it became dangerous to remain a heathen. Before 
his time, indeed, the Cross had been planted along the 
Mediterranean to beyond the pillars of Hercules, and 
Carthage had already given celebrated teachers to Chris- 
tendom : but now Romans and Africans forsook by thou- 
sands the altars of the deposed deities, and prostrated 
themselves in adoration before the son of Mary. 

Had not the purity of the Christian faith been previ- 
ously disturbed by human inventions and priestly feuds, it 
must have been affected by the measures of Constantino 
and his successors. The millions who betook themselves 
so suddenly to the Cross to escape persecution, to forward 
their worldly prospects, or to float with the current, could 
not exchange their notions and their feelings so speedily 
as the altar of a pagan for that of a Christian temple. 
They embraced new usages, not new convictions. The 
church only had conquered not the religion of Jesus: but 



130 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

priests themselves already began to consider ceremonies 
us the essentials of faith. 

Hence the converted nations on the coasts of Africa 
were neither more enlightened nor improved in character ; 
they continued to be what they had been. Ecclesiastical 
squabbles afforded fresh food for their passions. When 
Genseric, king of the Vandals, landed about the middle of 
the fifth century with Arian Christian barbarians, reduced 
Carthage, and founded his piratical state, religion lost as 
little ground as it gained a century later, when Justinian's 
general, Belisarius, annihilated the Vandal monarchy, and 
made the Catholic faith once more triumphant. 

The military fame of Belisarius was not long servicea- 
b e to the church itself. It was destined, because the Af- 
rican coast had been subjected to the Byzantine sceptre, to 
bring ruin upon them in the wars of the eastern powers 
with their hereditary foes, the Persians. The second 
Khosru, having vanquished the Greeks, overran Egypt, and 
reduced Carthage, determined to set up the worship of Or- 
muzd and the sacred fire instead of the reverence of the 
Cross. This happened at the same time that Muhamed 
assumed the prophetic character in Arabia, at the com- 
mencement of the seventh century. Twenty years later, 
after Khosru had subdued Africa, Muhamed's Arabs had 
advanced far beyond! the ruins of Memphis, on the Nile, 
The majority of the Egyptian nation, being Jacobite 
Christians, full of hatred against the Catholics and their 
emperor at Constantinople, even facilitated the conquest 
to Amru, the Arabian general. Both the Christian parties 
drew upon themselves that ruin which, in their blind rr» 
venge, each had prepared for the other. Neither had any 
alternative, but slavery and death, or the religion of Mu- 
hamed. Most of them chose the latter, with the same 
readiness and from the same motives that they had formerly 
embraced Christianity. Before the expiration of the cen- 
tury, North Africa was a dependency of Arabia, and the 
Gospel exterminated by the Koran. In Egypt alone, as 
also beyond the cataracts of the Nile and the deserts of 
Nubia, in Abyssinia, the Jacobite Christians maintained 
their ground, oppressed by the public scorn, along with 
relics of the Catholic, Greek, an4 Armenian churches ; 



AFKICA 131 

while the 4-rabs extended thei. dominion and their faith 
along the eastern and western coasts of Africa. 

Ever since those days the whole country, from the sandy 
hills on the left bank of the Nile to Mount Atlas, has been 
closed against Christianity, and its professors have not trod 
the soil of North Africa, but as slaves, or travelling traders, or 
ambassadors from European sovereigns, bringing respectful 
tribute to the piratical princes. The Christians enjoyed 
j most indulgence, perhaps, in Tripoli, where, though equally 
despised with the Jews, they are allowed the free exercise 
of their religion, especially since the family of the Cara- 
manli ascended the throne. The Pasha Yusuf Caramanli, 
(since 1 735) the third of that family, has from motives of 
policy, and to please the English, treated the Christians 
with some consideration. The Romish College de Pro- 
paganda Fide provided the Convent at Tripoli with three 
monks, mostly Franciscans, for the service of the Chris- 
tian consuls and their suites. 

At Tunis also toleration is granted, but in a very limited 

, degree. Attempts at conversion are punished with death* 

In the year 1816 there were in the capital only three Ca- 

C puchins and two Franciscans, and besides these a Greek 

church with one. priest, who likewise officiated for the 

Protestant consuls and their families. 

In Algiers there are very few Christians, but the Jews 
are so much the more numerous. In 1816 the number of 
the latter was computed at nine thousand souls, who had 
several synagogues. 

The Gospel was not preached in the other parts of 
Africa till a much later period than on the north coast. 
After the Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator, had in 
the year 1412 awakened in his nation a spirit of enterprise 
for the discovery of unknown regions in distant seas ; 
after Madeira was found, Cape Non doubled, the Senegal 
seen, the Line passed ; after the Spaniards, and then the 
Dutch, and lastly the other naval powers of Europe, eager 
after the gold-dust, ivory, spices, black slaves, and other 
productions of Africa, had peopled this portion of the 
globe with their settlements — the word of Christ was pro* 
claimed also along the shores of the east and west sides of 
tfeis continent. 



132 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Of the present state of Africa, one of the recent publi- 
cations of the Wesleyan Missionary Society presents so 
true and so affecting a picture, that I need not apologise 
for transferring it to these pages. 

Few parts of the world claim a larger share in the sym- 
pathy of Christians than Africa : not only do we owe to 
that portion of our globe a large debt of reparation and 
kindness for the inexpressible miseries inflicted by the slave- 
trade on the inhabitants of its western and eastern shores, 
but the deep moral ignorance in which her sable tribes are 
in every part involved, renders Africa an especial object of 
religious charity. The slave-trade excited wars and divi- 
sions among many of the African nations who had lived 
comparatively harmless among themselves, and arrested 
their simple efforts at civilization and improvement : some 
of them it could not render more cruel than they were ; 
but among these if a hundredth part of that effort had been 
used to establish a legitimate and civilizing commerce 
which was put forth to obtain slaves, and had this been ac- 
companied by endeavours to introduce among them the 
light of the Christian faith, even these semi-civilized barba- 
rians, such as the people of the kingdoms of Ashantee, 
Dahomy, and others, must at this time have presented a 
different character. It is most melancholy to reflect, that 
along a great part of the western coast of that continent, 
and no small part of the eastern too, professed Christians 
have been known chiefly as exciters of and partakers in 
the most atrocious deeds — that they have not only kept the 
Africans back from improvement, but have plunged them 
into the lowest depths of cruelty and barbarism — and that 
even now, when our country is endeavouring to use her 
power for purposes of mercy to the people of that conti- 
nent, other European nations are reviving the trade in hu- 
man beings, extending it in new directions, and counter- 
acting, as far as may be and with too much efficiency, the 
endeavours making to extend knowledge and religion in 
Africa. This activity of the wicked in doing mischief and 
inflicting misery, under the influence of the lust of gain, 
ought only to stimulate the activity of benevolence and 
religious charity. 

Independently, however, of all the evils which have been 



AFItlCA. 133 

the result of this violence and aggression of nations pro- 
fessing to be Christians, Africa presents a moral scene of 
the most affecting kind. To the North it is involved in 
Muhamedan darkness, delusion, and vice : in the South 
the people are sunk almost below paganism itself, having 
scarcely any form of religion or intellectual activity — 
r wretched, sordid, and degraded to the level of beasts : 
high up the East coast they are in a state of equal degra- 
) dation, but with more ferocity : in some parts of the West 
t and tending to the interior, there are several half-civilized 
}, kingdoms, whose superstitions are not only gross but hi- 
: deously cruel : of the central nations we as yet know little, 
of many nothing ; but there is no hope that any of them 
I are in a state much above the rest. Yet Africa contains 
* millions of immortal souls ; yet Africa has, both in former 
times and in our own days, witnessed the glorious and hal- 
lowing triumphs of the Gospel ; and over all her sun- 
5 burnt plains and in her trackless forests shall her children 
ultimately stretch out their hands unto God ! 

This is, indeed, an object of faith ; for the present state 
of the Africans is awfully distant from all appearance of 
such an event considered generally. The habits of the 
Caffres and Hottentots are well known, those of the half- 
\ civilized western nations not so much so ; but they furnish 
a most impressive proof that in many circumstances, every 
, approach to civilization, while paganism and superstition 
remain, only serves to increase human crime and misery. 
J They have monarchical government, an order of nobility, 
f merchants, and agriculturists ; they have chief cities, towns, 
and villages; but they are at once the slaves of the most 
i absolute^and most diabolical despotism and of the most san- 
< guinary superstition. For the slightest offence the life of 
man is taken away : at every funeral the blood of the com- 
mon people is used to moisten the grave ; the number slain 
J for this purpose is proportionate to the rank of the deceased, 
, and sometimes amounts to scores and hundreds of persons ; 
and this too is repeated every year, so that the waste of hu- 
man life is incalculable and wholly to be attributed to su- 
perstition and pride. 

Yet, through the mercy of God, has the work of his 
i grace begun in Africa. In Sierra Leone, on the West, 

12 



1 34 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the spectacle of a peaceful and happy Christian govern- 
ment is exhibited in delightful contrast with all these hor- 
rifying scenes — the fruit of superstition and the unchecked 
vices of the human heart : there no slave exists — no blood 
is spilt — no oppression lights on the poorest ; the church 
and the chapel receive the crowded worshippers of the 
true God, and his praise is heard in. their peaceful dwell- 
ings, the security of which is guarded by an equal law, as 
powerful for the poor as for the rich, for the black peasant 
as for his white governor. Southern Africa too now ex- 
hibits her converted tribes,, and her civilization, carried 
forward along with the knowledge of Christ and the kind 
and hallowing influence ©f the Gospel. Let us not then 
faint nor be discouraged : by the messengers of peace, 
sent forth into all these dark lands, shall the glorious work 
be done under the blessing of God, and the cruelties of 
pagan Africa be numbered only as those of ancient pagan 
Britain, to call forth the song of praise from all her tribes, 
and give new evidence to the truth and power of the 
Gospel ! 



CHAPTER II. 

PRESENT CHRISTIAN SECTS IN EGYPT. 

In Egypt small remnants of the Jacobite, Armenian. 
Greek, and Catholic churches have maintained themselves 
under numberless indignities and public humiliations till the 
present day. The Mussulman regards them with con- 
tempt. When a Christian does not choose to walk through 
the streets of Cairo, the ass is the only animal that he is 
permitted to ride. If he meets a grandee he is obliged to 
dismount, till the latter has passed ; and he must pay the 
the same mark of respect whenever he passes the house 
of the chief Cadi, twenty other courts of justice, and the 
principal mosques, if he would not expose himself to vio- 
lence from the populace. Even European ambassador^ 



EGYPT. 135 

and consuls, perhaps with the exception of the English 
alone, are forced to submit to this degradation. 

Like Ihe forsaken hermitages and the ruins of ancient 
convents that crown the bare and rugged rocks of the 
mountains of Dshebel Mokkattem on the right bank of 
the Nile, the Christians still subsist in Egypt, a monument 
of what has been : just as irreconcileable in their rights 
and in their doctrines concerning the natures and persons 

4 in Christ, and as full of inveterate enmity against each 

1 other, as they were a thousand years ago. 

The most numerous of these sects is that of the Jacob- 
ites or Coptic Christians. With Jacob, the Syrian, who 

1 flourished in the sixth century, they admit but one nature 

- in Christ, and believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded from 
God the Father only, and not from the Son. These 

i Copts are the gradually dwindling relics of the aboriginal 

■ inhabitants of Egypt. Like the ancient Egyptians, they 
are of a gloomy disposition, obstinate, and religious ; igno- 
rant, servile, and callous, from the. ill treatment which for 

i thousands of years they have experienced from their oft- 
changed rulers. Their sacred books are still written in 
the Coptic language ; but this language, though it has 
long since ceased to be the ancient JAsan Faraoum, or 
language of the Pharaohs, is now scarcely understood 
even by the priests themselves. To those religious opi- 
nions which the eastern emperors of old forced them with 
sword and dungeon to embrace, they still cling with an 
inflexibility, which renders them insensible to the scorn of 
the Moslems and fills them with abhorrence of the Roman 
Catholic churches. 

When Amru, at the head of the Arabs, entered Egypt 
eleven hundred years ago, the number of the Coptic 
Jacobite bishops still amounted to seventy : it has now r 
dwindled to twelve. Most of these episcopal sees are in 
Upper Egypt, where, at a greater distance from the head- 
quarters of their oppressors, they experienced the less mo- 
lestation. Their patriarch, however, who is styled the 
Primate of the churches of Nubia and Abyssinia, has his 
seat at Cairo, where there are twelve Coptic churches, 
including that at Fostat, also called Mase-el-atik, or Old 
Cairo, 



136 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITF. 

The Greek Christians possess but two churches in Cairo ; 
one of these is under the bishop of Mount Sinai, the other 
under the patriarch resident at Alexandria. In the latter 
city there are also several Jacobite as well as Greek 
churches. The Armenian and Catholic Christians are 
least numerous. The former have but one church in the 
capital of Egypt ; the latter two churches and as many 
convents. 

The Catholics are the most assiduous of these sects in 
the work of conversion. Jesuits, Capuchins, Franciscans, 
and other friars, are seen incessantly and zealously labour- 
ing to increase their small congregations. They have the 
prudence, however, to abstain from making too direct 
overtures to the professors of the Koran ; their only tri- 
umph consists in now and then gaining over a Christian 
of some other communion to the Romish church. 
The Pacha regards these proceedings of the European 
apostles with the utmost indifference, convinced that their 
conversions will not make better or worse citizens, and 
well knowing that they often produce quarrels, which fre- 
quently furnish a pretext for imposing heavy fines on con- 
verters and converted. The monks of the Romish church 
have detached convents scattered in the Egyptian towns 
and even in Upper Egypt, as for instance that of the Fran- 
ciscans at Achmina. 

Under barbarous rulers, but little illumination can be 
expected from the most despised portion of the people, to 
which the Christians belong. I am not alluding here to 
European settlers, but to those who regard Egypt as their 
country ; if, however, the place of abode of men possessing 
neither freedom nor rights may be called their country. 
They observe with slavish devotion church ceremonies 
transmitted to them from antiquity ; and they are ignorant 
and superstitious as their masters. They contemplate 
with reverence the aged sycamore of Matare, a village 
near the ruins of Heliopolis, five or six miles from the 
capital. Tradition relates, that when the holy family on 
their flight to Egypt were once seeking shelter, this tree 
opened to afford them a retreat. No good Christian 
passes without cutting a small piece from the tree, which 
seems nevertheless to flourish in imperishable beauty, 



ABYSSINIA. 137 

With the like devotion the Copts perform pilgrimage to a 
cavern, which is said to have served for the abode of the 
holy family ; and the Greeks do the same to a pillar in 
their church at Fostat, which is at least celebrated for 
what is rather a rare circumstance — a useful miracle. Any 
person, namely, who has lost his reason, and is bound to 
this pillar, is sure to recover it, if certain prayers are mut- 
tered over him. 

The Coptic congregations dwell far up the country in 
Upper Egypt, where they possess at Achmina one of the 
most magnificent churches in the whole province. They 
extend as far as the falls of the Nile, on the frontiers of 
Nubia. There, in the town of Dshirdshe, where the mis- 
sionaries of the Romish communion have also an hospice 
for the propagation of the faith, is still the seat of a Coptic 
bishop. The last vestiges of the Christian faith disappear 
at the commencement of the hot region of Nubia, in the 
kingdoms of Sennaar, Darfur, Dongala, and Dekin ; and. 
in those unknown tracts, a savage paganism alone goes 
hand in hand with the distorted doctrine of Muhamed. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE JACOBITES IN ABYSSINIA — FRUITLESS ATTEMPTS OF 
THE CATHOLICS TO ESTABLISH MISSIONS. 

It is about sixty days' journey through the deserts of 
Nubia to Abyssinia or Habesch. This country is; an 
African Switzerland, a labyrinth of valleys, hills, "and 
mountains, watered by springs, rivers, and lakes. Beeches 
and pines grow at the foot of the lofty mountains, the 
summits of which sometimes glisten with snow. On the 
verdant slopes of the hills, carnations, tulips, lilies, and 
other beautiful flowers, blossom in wild confusion amid 
the herbage of the meadows. The lion, the tiger, and the 
panther roar in the wilderness, and chamois swarm on the 

12* 



138 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

highest peaks of the mountains. The notes of European 
birds are heard in the woods ; but the cassowary and the 
ostrich rove through the steppes in the heart of the country. 

The inhabitants of this rich and wonderful mountain-re- 
gion came over, no doubt, at some very remote period from 
the neighbouring Arabia, from which they are separated 
only by the Red Sea. Their figure, their physiognomy, 
and their lank hair, confirm this conjecture ; but their dark 
olive complexion seem to denote an intermixture with some 
more ancient aboriginal race, unless this colour be the effect 
of a hot sun upon a long series of generations. As far as 
we can learn from their traditions and books, their state suf- 
fered many revolutions from wars and insurrections, till 
the sovereignty of the whole country became invested in 
one family ; for the sacred language in which their reli- 
gious books, their most ancient documents, are written, is 
now the language only of the shepherds of the country. 
It is called the Tigre language. Tigre is part of the 
mountain-tract, contiguous to the Red Sea, containing the 
ancient Axum, with the remains of its former magnifi- 
cence, among which an obelisk of granite eighty feet high 
is still standing. There the kings of Habesch are to this 
day solemnly consecrated. But the language of the 
sovereign and the grandees is the Amhara, so called from 
one of the most central provinces of the country. The 
residence of the Negus or king of Habesch is at Gondar 
in the province of Dembea. 

The Abyssinians are a pastoral people, who barter the 
productions of their country with foreigners, because they 
are not yet acquainted with money. Just as they were de* 
lineated by Mr. Salt in 1810, so they were described by 
Guerreiro, the Jesuit, in 1608. "Among them," says 
he, " we meet with fewer vices than in many countries of 
Europe, where our holy faith bears sway. They have 
great bluntness in conversation, much innocence in their 
manners, nothing savage, nothing cruel." 

The Portuguese navigators had discovered Habesch so 
early as in the second half of the fifteenth century. From 
that time commenced a commercial intercourse, and a 
closer connection between these Africans and the bold 
Europeans who succoured them against the predatory 
Moors and Beduins, in the neighbouring country of Ade! 



ABYSSINIA. 133 

or Zaila. The Portuguese brought with them some of 
their priests to Hahesch. These found there, to their no 
small astonishment, a Christian nation^ which had pre- 
served its faith from time immemorial, though surrounded 
by Muhamedan and pagan neighbours. The Christianity 
of Abyssinia, derived from the earliest ages of our era, 
had, it is true, nothing in common with the doctrines of 
the West. The Sabbath was observed as well as Sunday, 
circumcision as well as baptism, and the holy communion 
together with abstinence from many kinds of food prohi- 
bited by the law of Moses. A close affinity was dis- 
covered between its tenets and those of the Jacobite 
Christians in Egypt. The Abyssinians knew but of one 
nature in Christ, regardless whether western ecclesiastical 
councils had condemned this dogma or not. That many 
teachers of the word of God had formerly come to them 
from Egypt, was proved by the circumstance that the 
head of their church, their patriarch, the abuna (our 
father), who resided in the town of Dobsan, acknowledged 
himself a suffragan to the Coptic patriarch. 

So much the more intimate now became the connection 
between the Portuguese and the Abyssinians. King 
Etana Denghel, who was on the throne in 1525, even sent 
an ambassador to Lisbon to conclude a treaty of amity, 
and solicited Father Juan Bermudez, who had come to 
Habesch in the year 1520 with Alvarez, viceroy of India, 
to accept the post of abuna or patriarch of Abyssinia, 
when Mark, the former abuna, was lying on his death- 
bed. Bermudez cheerfully assumed the office, in which 
he was confirmed by Pope Paul HI. who unexpectedly 
found his sacred authority extended into the interior of a 
quarter of the globe that was scarcely yet discovered. 
This state of things, however, was of but short duration. 
The rude zeal of the Portuguese soldiers, to whom the 
religious rites of the Abyssinians appeared absurd or 
impious, exasperated the people ; and when, after the 
decease of the old king, Father Bermudez required his son 
Claudius to swear allegiance to St. Peter, that is, to the 
Pope of Rome, the young prince replied : " What care I 
for him ? I call thee no longer abuna. Thou art a pa- 
triarch of the strangers, a man that worships four gods." 
The Father threatened him with excommunication 5 on 



140 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

which Claudius exclaimed : " Thou art thyself excommu- 
nicated !" The king actually invited a new patriarch 
from Egypt, and Bermudez was obliged to quit Abyssinia. 

The intercourse between Portugal and Habesch was 
nevertheless kept up. Ignatius Loyola burned with desire 
to establish, by means of his disciples, a mission in the 
country. He obtained the approbation of the courts of 
Rome and Lisbon. In the year 1556, twelve Jesuits 
travelled to Abyssinia. Their journey, however, was 
fruitless, for their intemperate and contentious zeal soon 
rendered them odious alike to prince and people. 

At a later period (1G04) Peter Pays, the Jesuit, was 
more successful. By his abilities and address he prepos- 
sessed the court in his favour, while his assistants preached 
the Roman Catholic doctrine in the country. King 
Seltam Seghed even went so far as to issue an ordinance, 
commanding that no one should maintain, upon penalty 
of death, that there is but one nature in Jesus Christ. 
This and similar mandates, which threatened the ancient 
religion of the people, spread discontent over the greatest 
part of Abyssinia. The king, under the. guidance of the 
Jesuits, had recourse to rigour, which he carried to cruelty. 
The consequences were insurrections and civil wars, 
which made the throne totter. Many of the churches 
built by the Jesuits, which were more like fortresses than 
temples, were demolished by the people. The king, to 
preserve his crown, was obliged to grant permission to all 
to follow the dictates of their consciences. While the 
Jesuits murmured, the professors of the ancient faith sang : 
" Hallelujah ! for the sheep of Habesch are delivered 
from the wolves of the West !" 

On the decease of Seltam Seghed, in the year 1632, 
one of the first public measures of his son, Alan Seghed, 
was the expulsion of the Jesuits and all the Catholics. 
Their very name has continued to be an abomination to 
the people, even to the present day. Some Jesuits, who 
ventured to stay in Habesch, in expectation of better 
times, were seized and executed as contemners of the 
royal commands. Every subsequent attempt to establish 
missions has been frustrated. Three Franciscans, who 
came into the countrv at the commencement of thr 



ABYSSINIA* 141 

eighteenth century, were executed in 1716. The people, 
though suspicious of Europeans, whose zeal for making 
converts is odious to them, are nevertheless mild and 
courteous to those who interfere not in religious matters. 
While pagans, Muhamedans, and Jews, are tolerated in 
Abyssinia, the settlement of western Christians is viewed 
with a jealous eye. 

The most important circumstance that has recently 
happened for Abyssinia, is the translation of the Bible 
into the Amhara language. M. Asselin, charge d'affaires 
to the French consul-general in Egypt, accidentally met 
at Cairo with a poor old man, who, having been teacher 
to Mr. Bruce and Sir William Jones, and being complete 
master of Ethiopic literature, assisted him in the execu- 
tion of the work, which has been printed at the expense 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

The report of the Church Missionary Society for 
1820-1 states, that Professor Lee had turned much of his 
attention to the subject of Abyssinia, and that several 
other members of the University, of Cambridge were 
devoting themselves with his assistance to forward the 
opening plans in behalf of that country. To prepare 
Abyssinia for the reception and use of the Scriptures, in 
both the ecclesiastical and vernacular languages of the 
country, and to supply editions of them suited to their 
purposes, are objects worthy of years of toil by the best 
scholars of our land. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society has availed itself 
of all the means at its disposal to provide such editions ; 
and, by the active aid of its learned coadjutors, the Four 
Gospels in Amharic, procured for the Society by the Rev. 
Mr. Jewett in Egypt, were printed and forwarded in 1825 
to Abyssinia. The Ethiopic Scriptures were at the same 
time in preparation. Two Lutheran clergymen from the 
seminary at Baste, destined to undertake a journey to Abys- 
sinia for the purposes of investigation and research, prepa- 
ratory to the commencement of a mission in that country, 
proceeded towards the end of the year 1826 to Cairo, the 
grand resort of North African intercourse, where other 
missionaries had previously arrived for the purpose of being 
permanently stationed there. The former met in Egypt 



142 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

with Girgis, an intelligent and well-disposed native of 
Abyssinia, who had been sent by the king to procure an 
abuna, or bishop, from the Armenian patriarch, the former 
abuna having been expelled for intemperance. With this 
person the missionaries visited Palestine and Syria, and, 
after an intercourse of many months had confirmed their 
mutual regard, they found, on their return to Cairo, an 
Englishman, named Coffin, become by long residence an 
Abyssinian in sentiment and habits, deputed by the ras of 
Tigre, who is in a state of discord with the king, and had 
at first received the expelled abuna, but had now sent to 
the Coptic patriarch for another abuna. The ras further 
solicits the interference of the English to fortify Amphila, 
on the coast of his province, as a place of trade, and asks 
for mechanics and artisans, and especially a physician. 

Mr. Coffin was the bearer of a letter to the British go- 
vernment containing these bequests, and had directions to 
proceed to England, if practicable, to deliver it. The 
missionaries justly consider this combination of circum- 
stances as extraordinary ; and though one of them, on 
account of his knowledge of medicine, may probably be 
detained by the ras at Tigre, he purposes to make it a 
condition of taking up his residence there, that he shall 
be allowed to accompany his colleague in visiting all parts 
of Abyssinia. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EAST COAST OF AFRICA MADAGASCAR ISLE 0* 

BOURBON. 

From the mountains of Abyssinia, for a range of some 
thousands of miles along the east coast of Africa to the 
Cape territory, consisting of regions hot, moist, fertile, but 
insalubrious for Europeans, reigns paganism, or the reli- 
gion of Muhamed, or a mixture of both. The Portuguese 



EAST COAST OF AFRICA. 143 

still possess here some settlements, relics of the days of 
their glory, at - Mozambique, Monomotapa, Quiloa, and 
Sofala. At Mozambique, a small insular town, and the 
chief station of the Portuguese, there are two convents 
and as many churches. The place is also the seat of a 
bishop. For centuries but little has been done for the 
propagation of Christianity, and that little without success. 
Missionareis were frequently wanting, and, where pro- 
mising beginnings were made, all soon relapsed into its 
former barbarism. In Monomotapa the Jesuits were long 
actively engaged : but it is doubtful whether the apparent 
disposition of the people for Christianity was so much the 
result of instruction as of fear of the Portuguese, whose 
protection or military aid was of greater consequence to 
the natives than their religion. 

All the attempts made to convert the formidable natives 
of the extensive island of Madagascar, about 800 miles by 
200, proved till lately still more unsuccessful. Its popu- 
lation, computed at four millions of souls, who combine 
the most deplorable inventions of paganism and the rudest 
notions of virtue with the belief in an only Supreme Being, 
continued to be sworn enemies to the Europeans. They 
were but too well acquainted with these Europeans, who 
come to annihilate the independence of nations and to 
make themselves masters of the natural wealth of their 
countries. So recently as the year 1815, the British set- 
tlement formed there was razed to the ground, and every 
European inhabitant of it massacred without mercy. 

I shall say nothing of the earlier efforts of individual 
missionaries, among whom the French were particularly 
active, because they were productive of no benefit in 
Madagascar. 

Prospects more pleasing to the benevolent mind have 
since opened in this island. In 1821 a treaty was conclu- 
ded between the British governor of the Isle of France, and 
Radama, King of Madagascar, for the extinction of the 
slave* trade among his subjects. According to a stipula- 
tion of this treaty ten Madagascar youths were sent to the 
Mauritius and ten to England, to be instructed in useful 
arts with a view to promote civilization in their own coun- 
try. Missionaries had previously been received at Tanana- 



144 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rivoo, the capital of King Radama, who had even placed 
under their care for education sixteen native children, three 
of whom were sons of his own sister, one of them heir-ap- 
earent to the crown, and the rest of the children of differ- 
ent nobles. Other schools were established, and the mis- 
sionaries applied themselves assiduously to the study of the 
language of the island. Missionary artisans were sent 
out, preparations were made for the erection of cotton and 
silk-works, and it was even in contemplation to introduce 
the mulberry-tree into Madagascar. 

Still more recent accounts assure us that prejudice is 
gradually giving way among the natives, and to this end 
the example and decisive measures of King Radama pow- 
erfully conduce. He has abolished infanticide and some 
other inhuman and superstitious customs, and enacted 
laws tending to the encouragement of industry and civil- 
ization. By a late treaty with the chiefs of an extensive 
portion of the island, inhabited by people called Sacalaves, 
he is become the ruler of at least two-thirds of Madagas- 
car : and, considering the enlightened and liberal charac- 
ter of this sovereign, that event cannot but be regarded as 
auspicious to the extension both of Christianity and civil- 
ization. 

Some of the youths educated in England, under the care 
of the London Missionary Society, have returned to their 
own country to communicate to others the useful know- 
ledge which they have here acquired. 

The number of native children of both sexes under in- 
struction in the twenty-nine schools established by the 
missionaries in the environs of the capital, exceeds two 
thousand ; and some of those edueated at the central school 
or Royal College, at Tananarivoo, are at present usefully 
engaged as superintendents of schools in the country. In 
that institution there are now about one hundred and sixty 
boys ; and the king has signified his pleasure that twelve 
of the most promising of them shall receive instruction in 
Creek and Latin. A public examination is annually held 
at the capital, on which occasions the king usually pre- 
sides ; and he enters with great interest into all the details 
©f the meeting. A Society in aid of the schools has been 
established at Tananarivoo, with the sanction of the king, 



MADAGASCAR — ISLE OF BOURBON. 145 

and is denominated The Madagascar Missionary School 
Society. From the latest reports it appears that the mis- 
sionaries are zealously exerting themselves to introduce 
the knowledge of letters among the numerous population 
of this extensive island, chiefly with a view to render the 
natives capable of reading the Scriptures. A translation 
of the New Testament into their language has been com- 
pleted ; the missionaries are proceeding with the books of 
the Old Testament : and a printing-press, with the requi- 
site appendages, has been sent out to this station. 

From among the youths trained in the Royal College, 
eighteen have lately been selected for military service by 
command of the king, who, finding his endeavours for the 
government of the country cramped and sometimes para- 
lyzed, for want of agents capable of communicating with 
him in writing, is now convinced of the necessity of using 
all means in his power for promoting the instruction of his 
people — a measure which can scarcely fail to conduce to 
the diffusion of useful knowledge, civilization, and Chrjs* 
tianity. 

In the other smaller islands off the east coast of Africa, 
such as the Isle of Bourbon and the Isle of France, Chris- 
tianity is pretty general among the scanty population. 
Slaves themselves receive some little religious instruction. 
In all the other islands of this ocean, for instance in the 
Comorra islands, on the coast of Zanguebar, the peo- 
ple^ mostly subject to Muhamedan conquerors, are stil! 
heathen. 



13 



146 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER V. 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE — PROTESTANT MISSIONS FOR THE 
CONVERSION OF THE HOTTENTOTS, CAFFRES, &C. 

TfiE Cape of Good Hope forms the southernmost point 
of the African continent. The Dutch, under Jan van 
Ribek, conquered and took possession of it in 1653. In 
Table Bay they erected and fortified Cape Town, a place 
which, from its situation, must be of importance to Euro- 
peans while the maritime commerce of the East Indies 
continues to be so. 

The Dutch were for a long period merely Dutch, that is, 
merchants. To humanize men was one of the last pursuits 
in which they would have thought of engaging. About 
the religious instruction of their own slaves they concerned 
themselves but little. There were scarcely any schools at 
Cape Town, and those which did exist were in a wretched 
state. Good families sent their children to Europe for 
education. The Calvinists, who possess most influence at 
Cape Town, long denied their Lutheran fellow Christians 
the privilege of having a church ; it was not till 1779 that 
the latter, after surmounting numerous obstacles, were al- 
lowed the public exercise of their religion : and it was not 
before the conclusion of the eighteenth century that, in 
Holland itself, the propagation of a better faith among the 
heathen in the Dutch colonies began to be seriously 
thought of. Still less was done towards this end at Cape 
Town and among the neighbouring savages than in the 
other Batavian settlements. 

With the reduction of Cape Town by the English, du- 
ring the war of the French revolution (in 1795), com- 
menced a new era for the heathen of southern Africa. 
The London Missionary Society, the United Brethren, 
and the Wesleyan Methodists, entered w r ith laudable emu- 
lation upon their labours in the sacred cause. 

The nearest neighbours to Cape Town are the Hotten- 
tots, a poor slothful tribe, possessing few ideas, who dwell 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 147 

m scattered kraals or villages, rear cattle and sheep, pay 
scarcely any attention to agriculture, and have acquired 
but little taste for civilization from their proximity for two 
centuries past to Europeans. The people of more remote 
regions lead a wandering life, as they have done for thou- 
1 sands of years. 

So early as 1736, the Moravian Brethren, in their zeal 
for the conversion of the natives, had begun to collect a 
L little congregation of Christian Hottentots at Gnadenthal. 
■ George Schmidt, a pious German, was their first apostle, 
1 Gnadenthal is situated in a narrow fertile valley, about 
> 135 miles east by north from Cape Town. The Dutch 
( East India Company, however, in their mercantile policy, 
disapproved the undertaking, and even deemed it danger- 
ous to the interests of the colony. They accordingly 
1 prohibited the propagation of Christianity, and prevented 
it till the year 1792. Not till then did they yield to the 
r repeated solicitations of the Brethren, and grant them 
permission to send over missionaries again. George 
Schmidt had taughta few Hottentots to read, and left them 
a Dutch Bible ; and this little had been sufficient to keep 
f the spark of Christianity alive among them. The con- 
-' gregation has since increased from year to year, and six 
missionaries soon found abundant employment in teaching 
and diffusing European civilization. In ]816 there were 
'( at Gnadenthal two hundred and forty-four houses, inha- 
bited by twelve hundred and seventy- six persons ; but, 
owing to the removal of several families to the new settle- 
j ment of Elim, their number was reduced in 1825 to twelve 
hundred. 

The appearance of this Hottentot town, with its church, 
its school, and its busy artisans, induced the British go- 
i vernor, the Earl of Caledon, in 1808, to grant the Mora- 
\ vians a site for a new mission, about forty miles north- 
; ward of Cape Town, on the coast. This is Gronekloof 
I (Greendale). Here resided from sixty to seventy Hot- 
! tentots in twelve huts. The missionaries immediately 
i fell to work, erected a school, taught the operations of 
agriculture and gardening, burned down the neighbouring 
| woods, which were the haunt of tigers, and the whole 
i country soon assumed a different aspect under their hands, 



148 SUBVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

So early as 1813, forty- four Christian families dwelt there 
together in neat habitations, and in 1827 the place had 
five hundred and eighteen inhabitants. At another mis- 
sion to which, in honour of Lord Caledon, his name was 
given, about one hundred and thirty miles eastward from 
Cape Town, six hundred Hottentots were settled in 1816. 
Though circumstances caused the relinquishment of this 
station in 1822, it was re-established in 1827, with the 
concurrence of the government. 

The United Brethren have also settlements at Hemel in 
Aarde, near Caledon, at Elim, near Cape Aiguillas, and 
at Enon, on the Witte River, near Algoa Bay. On the 
invitation of the colonial government, they are preparing 
to extend their labours beyond the borders of the colony, 
by adding a sixth settlement among the Tambookies to 
the five enumerated above. It appear^ that these people, 
who, under their chieftain, Powan^, possess an exten- 
sive and fertile tract of country bordering on the district of 
Somerset, having, like other tribes, suffered from the 
inroads of the Mantatees, applied to the colonial govern- 
ment for protection ; but this could not be afforded beyond 
the bounds of the colony, and they were unwilling to 
remove within its territory and to leave their fine country 
a prey to others. After the defeat of the Mantatees, 
Powana begged the colonial government to use its influ- 
ence for the establishment of a missionary institution 
among his people : and government proposed the mea- 
sure to the Brethren, who, after visiting the Tambookie 
chief, acceded to the application. 

The London Missionary Society also has establishments 
at Bethelsdorp, founded in 1802, about four hundred and 
fifty miles eastward of Cape Town, near Algoa Bay, 
where twelve hundred Hottentots are engaged in agricul- 
ture, rearing cattle, and various trades ; at Theopolis, 
sixty miles north-east of Bethelsdorp ; at Pacaltsdorp, 
two hundred and forty-five miles east of the Cape ; at 
Hankey, a new station, named after the Treasurer of the 
Society, near the Chamtoos River, between Bethelsdorp 
and Pacaltsdorp ; and atPaarl, Tulbagh, and BosjesvekL 
from thirty-five to seventy-five miles distant from Cape 
Town. 



/ 

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 149 

In Albany, a district in the eastern part of the Colony, 
die Wesley an Missionary Society has its chief station at 
Graham's Town, with subordinate stations at Salem and 
several other places. 

Farther in the interior of South Africa, as far as the 
Great Orange River, dwell the roving tribes of the Bos- 
jesmans, the Namaquas, the Coranas, and others. All 
these, like the Caffres in general, are a handsome vigor- 
ous race of men, of a brown colour, and with woolly 
hair. Here, in luxuriant valleys, enclosed by immense 
sandy deserts, vast forests, and detached ranges of hills, 
they subsist by some little agriculture and the produce of 
their herds of cattle. Some of them have a notion of a 
supreme, invisible Being — but the belief in sorcery and 
conjuration is the religion of most. Many of them are 
reported to have never yet reflected whether that which 
feels and thinks in them be any thing more than the body 
or not. When Campbell asked two Bosjesmans, " Who 
placed the sun yonder in the firmament and prevents it 
from falling ?" — they replied, " We cannot tell, but have 
often wondered at it ourselves." 

With pious ardour and self-denial the missionaries have 
advanced beyond the Orange River intathe very heart of 
the Griqua country. Their missions extend to the town 
of Griqua itself, and into the territory of the Bootsuan- 
nas, who surpass the other tribes in knowledge, and even 
understand the art of working copper and iron. At Lat- 
takoo, the capital of the latter, situated on the river of 
the same name, at the distance of six hundred and thirty 
miles from the Cape, King Mateebe, on his return from 
a jackal hunt, granted them permission to teach among 
his people. " Send your priests," said he, " I will be a 
father to them." The town of Lattakoo, which is neatly 
built, contains about fifteen hundred houses and eight 
thousand inhabitants. The people manifest a certain 
degree of civilization and considerable rnechanical indus- 
try. Twenty other great tribes, still farther northward in 
the interior of Africa, all speak the language of the Boot- 
suannas, and are said to be more polished than the inha- 
bitants of Lattakoo. 

Attempts to establish missions have also been made in 
13* 



I 

ISO SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the immense territory of the red Caffres, on the east coast, 
to the north of the Great Fish River, where the Tamboo- 
kies, the Mambookies, the Makinas, with their copper 
and iron mines, and other tribes, dwell in proud indepen- 
dence, in regions never before visited by any European. 

The number of the Caffres subject to the three chiefs, 
T'Gaika, Hinza, and Slambie, is computed at about 
130,000 souls. The Tambookies amount to about the 
same number, and their most distant kraalls are not much 
more than two hundred miles from the territory of the 
Cape. The Wesleyan and the London Missionary Socie 
lies have stations in the Caffre country ; the introduction 
of Christianity seems to be encouraged by some of the 
most powerful of the chiefs ; and hopes are entertained 
that, from the prudent measures of the local Government 
of the Cape on the one hand, and on the other the confi- 
dence with which the natives have been inspired by their 
intercourse with the missionaries, the wars which till re- 
cently were constantly occurring on the borders will give 
place to a state of settled peace. 

During the last years, however, there have been great 
commotions among the tribes to the eastward of Caffraria. 
The whole land has been in a state of warfare, and thou- 
sands of the wretched inhabitants, apparently the rem- 
nants of various tribes, driven from their respective coun- 
tries, have sought an asylum among the Tambookies and 
the Caffres. These wars seem to have commenced near 
Delagoa Bay ; and some of the tribes to have proceeded 
northward, others in a westerly direction, and others 
toward the Caffre frontier. Great numbers appear to 
have perished from famine ; but these restless tribes are 
now again at peace. 

In the Bootsuanna country the operations of the mis- 
sionaries sent out by the London and Wesleyan Societies 
have been lately suspended, in consequence of the con- 
tentions of different tribes, but the labourers have 
since returned to their posts, fn this country the scarcity 
of rain is found to be a great obstacle to agriculture. The 
missionaries assured the Rev. Dr. Philip, at the time of 
his visit in 1825, that a shower to moisten the earth is a 
rare circumstance ; and that for five years they had not 



/ 

CAJPE OF GOOD HOPE. 161 

$een a drop of rain-water running on the surface of the 
ground. Accordingly their sole dependence for corn and 
vegetables is upon irrigation, and, to procure water for 
this purpose at New Lattakoo, they had to cut a channel 
two miles in length and from three to five feet in width. It 
is rarely that even a cloud is seen. Clouds and shade im- 
part to a Bootsuanna a more lively idea of felicity than 
sunshine and fine weather to an Englishman. In the 
language of these people pulo, rain, is the only word which 
they have for a blessing — and showers of rain are truly 
showers of blessings. 

In the country of the Namaquas, the London Mission- 
ary Society has stations at Bethany, Pella, Steinkopf, 
and Reed Fountain ; and the Wesleyan Society, at Lily 
Fountain in Little Namaqua land : but the frequent dis- 
tress sustained by the Namaquas from want of pasturage, 
and the interruption to the labours of the missionaries 
resulting from the consequent necessity of moving from 
one place to another in search of it, are powerful reasons 
against increasing the number of missions among these 
people. It would, however, be important if their various 
tribes could be induced to settle in some part of the coun- 
try, and to direct their attention to agriculture. With a 
view to facilitate such a change in the state of that peo- 
ple, a professional gentleman of South Africa purposes 
surveying a portion of the Orange River in order to find 
out, if possible, a spot where the irrigation of the adja- 
cent lands would be practicable with a moderate expendi- 
ture of labour. Should this project succeed, the labours 
of the missionaries among the Namaquas will be eventu- 
ally prosecuted under circumstances far more favourable 
to the systematic application of means for their religious 
and social improvement. 

It would appear that some of the advantages here con- 
templated have been enjoyed by the Wesleyan missiona- 
ries, who report that at the Khamiesberg a considerable 
part of the tribe of Little Namaquas have been reduced 
from migratory habits to the cultivation of the soil and 
the practice of useful arts, and that they have wholly 
renounced idolatry and their native superstitions. Build- 
ings, fields, and gardens, have here taken the place of the 



152 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

former Hottentot kraal. Another great benefit which 
these people have derived from the settlement of the mis- 
sionaries among them is the exemption from those hostili- 
ties, from which none of the tribes of Africa hitherto dis- 
covered in a purely heathen state are free. Before Chris- 
tianity was introduced among the Namaquas, their neigh- 
bours, the Bosjesmans, were frequently making attacks 
on them and stealing their cattle, in consequence of which 
much blood was shed : but, since they have been collected 
Upon one spot and have had a missionary residing among 
them, they have had nothing to fear either from enemies 
without, or from any who might be disaffected within : for 
the Bosjesmans dare not now venture to attack the Nama- 
quas, and the latter will not attack the Bosjesmans, having 
learned from the Gospel to regard them as the offspring of 
the same common parent. 

The better we become acquainted with the CafFres, 
through the courage and perseverance of the missionaries, 
the more w T e are compelled to recant those prejudices 
which we entertained regarding those tribes. They are 
more susceptible of improvement in domestic and social 
matters, farther advanced in the diffusion of the conve- 
niences of life, and more humane in their nature, than we 
had imagined. — But they too learn to know us Europeans 
by means of the missions in a more favourable point of 
view, and discover, that we are not merely bloodthirsty, 
rapacious barbarians, who come across the sea to make 
slaves, and to seek gold, bringing in exchange stupefying 
liquors and murderous weapons ; or to wrest their liberty 
from independent nations, their land from its ancient in- 
habitants, and to sow discord between valiant tribes that we 
may exterminate them with the greater ease. The pious 
missionaries of our days traverse Africa accompanied by 
the Bible and the plough. 

If Dutch boors in the environs of Cape Town have 
heretofore hunted down Bosjesmans like wild beasts and 
shot them without ceremony, is it matter of surprise that 
the CafTre tribes should transmit their abhorrence of 
Christians from generation to generation ? — Thanks to 
the efforts of later missionaries, they prove more and 
more successful in healing misunderstandings, in recou» 



CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 153 

ciling long exasperated nations, and in rendering even 
European traders more Christian-like. Things which 
formerly could not be done at all are now done openly. 
There are even free schools at Cape Town for slaves, 
which are attended by brown and black pupils between 
the ages of six years and thirty. Though these institu- 
tions are not founded by the public authorities, but by phi- 
lanthropic individuals, still those authorities are entitled to 
praise when they do not throw obstacles in the way of 
improvement. 

The colonial government of the Cape has not, however, 
been content of late with earning this barren praise. 
Not only has it afforded encouragement to the introduc- 
tion of Christianity among the bordering tribes, but it has 
issued an ordinance for facilitating commerce with the 
CarTres and other nations situated beyond the boundaries 
of the colony. Some of its regulations have a strong 
moral tendency. Thus it is ordained that no one shall 
pass the limits of the colony for the purpose of trading 
without a license — that licenses shall be granted to 
persons of good character only — that no one shall be au- 
thorized to carry beyond the boundaries fire-arms, offen- 
sive weapons, or ammunition, beyond what may be 
deemed necessary for personal defence — that any person 
convicted of maltreating or defrauding a Caffre or any 
other foreigner shall be subject to fine or imprisonment — 
that any goods, merchandise, or cattle, which may be 
legally sold within the colony may also be offered for sale 
or barter to the tribes beyond it, except fire-arms, offensive 
weapons, ammunition, and spirituous liquors, such things 
being declared to be contraband, and persons seized with 
them are to be dealt with according to law. By the en- 
forcement of such Christian regulations the British go- 
vernment cannot fail to acquire a most beneficial and 
increasing influence among the pagan nations bordering 
upon its territories. 

The Commissioners of inquiry, who have lately been 
engaged in the investigation of the state of this colony, 
have suggested its division into two provinces, a measure 
which has received his majesty's approbation. The 
Western Province will comprise the districts of the Cape. 



154 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Stellenbosch, Zwellendam, Worcester, and Clanwilli* m : 
the Eastern will consist of the districts of Graaf Reinet. 
Beaufort, Somerset, Albany, Uitenhage, and George. 
The superficial extent of the two provinces is nearly equal. 
The population of the former amounts to forty- five 
thousand free persons and twenty-nine thousand slaves ; 
its produce consists chiefly of corn and wine. Cape 
Town, notwithstanding its admitted disadvantages in 
some respects, will continue to be its seat of government. 
The population of the Eastern Province is estimated at 
about forty thousand free persons and six thousand five 
hundred slaves : it chiefly affords pasturage for cattle j 
and its capital will be either Uitenhage or Grahamtown, 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA — CONGO — LOANGO. 

Beyond the Great Orange River, northward of its 
mouths, extends a region nearly fifteen hundred miles in 
length along the west coast of Africa, in no part of which 
European settlements are to be found : nay, by far the 
greater part of this region is still an unknown country. 
The seaman calls an immense tract of it by no other 
name than "The Desert Coast," and where there are in- 
habitants, as near Cape Negro, they are described as 
cannibals. Such are the Zimbebes and Jaggas. 

It is not till we reach the coast of Benguela, Angola, 
and Congo, that we again meet with European towns and 
forts. In these hot and fertile countries, the Portuguese 
have ancient and extensive possessions. Their towns of 
San Salvador and Pemba in Congo, Loanda de San Pablo 
in Angola, and San Felibe in Benguela, each containing 
from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants, are annually 
visited by caravans, bringing gold-dust and ivory from the 
unknown interior of Africa. This is Portugal's African 



CONGO — LOANGO. 155 

Brasil, divided into dutchies, counties, and marquisates, 
which are ruled by royal governors and viceroys. 

The clergy of the episcopal diocesses here have caused 
Christianity to be preached to the Negroes ever since the 
fifteenth century. But, with the exception of prisoners 
and slaves, or tribes dependent on the forts of Portugal, the 
Christian faith has not won any free nation : for, when the 
inhabitants of the country considered the way of life and 
the cruelty of the white strangers, who dispossessed them of 
their lands and carried away their captive brethren beyond 
seas, they were filled with horror of the God of such people, 
and with the bitterest hatred against all who embraced the 
worship of that God. It is known that the Jagga Negroes 
have peculiarly sanguinary associations (Quixiles) for 
preventing the propagation of the faith of the Whites ; and 
they carry on a war of extermination. 

In those parts, however, of Congo, Loango, and other 
countries, which are more or less subject to the Portu- 
guese, the Gospel has already made great progress 
through the courage of individual missionaries. It is 
computed that the number of converted Negroes far 
exceeds one hundred thousand. Several native princes 
' even are Catholics. This change is chiefly owing to the 
zeal and exertions of the Capuchins. 

According to the reports of Father Antonio Zuchelli, 
who in the early part of the eighteenth century traversed 
Congo as a preacher, and even converted the sovereign of 
Sogno, a kingdom then dependent on Loango, the Chris- 
tianity of the Negroes in his time was not of the purest kind. 
Together with the outward forms of the Romish worship, 
they adhered to their ancient pagan customs, their hideous 
lamentations around the dying and the dead, their adora- 
tion of the black goat, which Zuchelli of course regarded 
as the representative of the devil, and other usages. The 
zealous Capuchin, unable to devise more effectual means 
of enforcing his exhortations, would frequently seize a 
cudgel to beat better convictions into the graceless 
Negroes. 

French ecclesiastics also founded missions in 1766 in 
the countries of Cacongo and Loango. In their reports 
they spoke in high terms of the joyful welcome which, a? 



156 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

servants of God, they received from the congregations of 
Christian Negroes. The missions in Cacongo, Congo, 
and Benguela, are still kept up, though with a good deal 
of interruption, and feebly supported: for the tropical 
climate, with its long continued rains, followed by the 
rapidly drying harmattan, and with its intense heat, which 
is suddenly moderated by the tempestuous winds of tor- 
nadoes, gives a fatal shock to the constitutions of Euro- 
peans on their first arrival in the country. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GUINEA SIERRA LEONE CHRISTIANITY OF GAMBIA. 

If the Christian faith makes but slow progress in those 
countries which are called Lower Guinea, it is not owing 
entirely to the perverseness of the Africans or the evils of 
the climate, but still more to the careless indifference of the 
Portuguese. Upper Guinea, from Cape Negro to the 
Sierra Leone mountains, is equally visited by tornadoes 
and harmattans, scorching heat and deluges of rain ; but 
the Europeans settled here, English, Dutch, Danes, and 
French, are of a more active turn, better versed in the arts 
and sciences, more skilful in the preservation of health, 
and at the same time more humane, or more prudent, in 
their treatment of the natives. 

All the settlements hitherto formed in Upper Guinea 
appear, indeed, to the eye but as very widely scattered 
points in a tract of country two thousand five hundred 
miles in length. Here dwell yet unnumbered tribes of 
Negroes, especially toward the interior of this great 
continent. 

In Upper as well as in Lower Guinea the aboriginal 
inhabitants are heathen. They adore, it is true, or at least 
have a notion of an invisible God, but pray with stupid 
superstition to works of Nature or images made with their 
own hands, because the antiquity of the practice or the 
priests have instilled into them a profound reverence for 



GUINEA, 157 

this fetish worship. They have in general but one and 
the same name for heaven and the Supreme Being, and 
almost every nation has its peculiar hierarchy of gods or 
fetishes. The latter are honoured for their supposed 
magical, healing, or protecting properties, without being 
regarded as actual deities, especially if they have been 
made by human hands. Many believe the immortality of 
the soul. The Mandingo Negroes pray for deceased 
friends. The Onninas, in the midst of the battle, sing 
hymns to God. The Temboos pray in the morning : 
" God help us ! we know not whether we shp.ll be alive 
to-morrow ; we are in thy hand !" Oldendorp, the mis- 
sionary, heard a Watje Negress in the Caribbee islands 
pronounce this prayer : " O God, 1 know thee not, but 
thou knowest me ! I have need of thy help." 

Almost all the Negro nations of Africa have priests and 
priestesses, who present the prayers and offerings of the 
people to the gods and return answers in their name. 
Owing to the ignorance of the laity, the priesthood is of 
course a thriving profession. It is the priests who intimate 
to princes as well as to subjects what kind of offerings, 
whether cows, sheep, silks, young females, or spirituous 
liquors, will be the most acceptable gifts to the wolf, the 
sacred serpent, or the black he-goat. The people are 
misused by the kings as well as by the priests. The Negro 
kings, mostly despotic sovereigns, are cruel that they 
may appear powerful : their harems are not rarely filled 
with thousands of women, who in some places form an 
armed body-guard for their masters ; and their entertain- 
ments are often marked by the massacre of prisoners of 
war, or of their own subjects. On occasion of the death 
of the king of Akim, three hundred and thirty-six of the 
women of his harem had their arms, legs, and ribs, 
broken, and were then buried alive. By way of display- 
ing the horrible magnificence of princes, it is sometimes 
the practice to conduct ambassadors who are presented to 
them through whole files of men's and horses' heads 
which have been recently cut off. 

Many Europeans beheld it is true with horror this fero- 
cious disposition of the nations of Africa, but they took 
little pains to correct it. They rather sought to turn the 

14 



t.i/8 SUIIVEY OF CHIUiTIANlTV. 

military barbarity of the Negro chiefs to profitable account 
The slave-traders, it is well known, surpassed the Negro 
princes in obdurate inhumanity. How many millions of 
wretched blacks have been in the course of centuries 
carried across the sea from Guinea by Europeans! fre- 
quently more than a hundred thousand in one year* 
scarcely half of whom ever saw the shores of the New 
World, numbers of them perishing during the voyage of 
grief, of cruel treatment, or in mutinies, or wilfully putting 
an end to their lives in a variety of ways. When once, so 
Qldendorp relates, many Negroes on board a ship had 
resolved to starve themselves to death, the captain could 
Dot devise any expedient to deter them from their des- 
perate purpose, but to cut one of them in little pieces^ 
and threaten the rest of them with a similar fate unless 
they took their food as usual. This treatment seemed 
to them much worse than any thing tljey had yet antici- 
pated from futurity, and they submitted to their melanr 
cjioly lot. 

The execrable traffic of Christian nations continued 
till the commencement of the nineteenth century. So 
long as the shores of Guinea rise above the surface of the 
ocean, will future ages recount the atrocities of Euro- 
peans, but remember also with emotion the philanthropic 
Wilberforces, Sharps, Thorntons, Clarksons, and others, 
who first lent a hand to terminate these horrors. It is 
remarkable that no Christian sovereign, no minister, no 
statesman, first conceived and set about the execution of 
the simply grand and humane idea. No, they were plain, 
honest, pious people, Quakers of Pennsylvania, who first 
abolished the slavery of the Negroes, and whose example 
was immediately followed (in 1801) by the whole republic 
of the United States of America and Denmark. But, so 
lately as 1013, a European sovereign — the king of Por- 
tugal—could formally authorize the traffic in his black 
fellow-creatures! The British were generous enough to 
bring back his Most Faithful Majesty by force to the 
duties of humanity, by taking such of hjs ships as were 
found engaged in the slave-trade, and setting at liberty 
the blacks on board them. 

T|)e work begun by humanity the heroism of Christian 



SIEBRA LEOHb. Wfl 

tfirtue completed on those coasts, which were so long the 
Theatre of ineffable cruelties. 

In 1771 Granville Sharp, a wealthy and benevolent 
man, having espoused the cause of a Negro boy, whom 
the captain of a slave-ship claimed as his property, and 
would have carried out of the country against his will, 
brought the' question before the t/'ourt of King's Bench, 
and the verdict of the jury on this occasion decided that 
ki the slave who sets foot on the soil of England shall be 
free as any native of the country." At the conclusion of 
the American war there were actually several hundred 
Negroes living' in London, free but unprovided for, and 
reduced to the lowest state of indigence. On this occa- 
sion, the same Granville Sharp conceived the idea of 
founding, in association with other philanthropic indi- 
vidual, a. British Negro colony on the west coast of 
Africa, in the year 1787 a convenient site at Cape Sierra 
Leone was purchased of the Negro princes there ; it was 
speedily enlarged by fresh' purchases in" the neighbour- 
hood ; and a new town, called Freetown, was budt in the 
harbour of George Bay aifd peopled with free Negroes, 

Trie Sierra Leone Company, formed in London, soon 
obtained the public confidence, immunities from the go- 
vernment, and considerable contributions from new merit- 
ber3. The colony in Africa rapidly increased every year, 
especially after the abolition of the slave-trade. Fort 
Thornton was built; in 1809 a new town, called King- 
ston, was begun, and at the same time a new retreat for 
Negroes was founded at the foot of Leicester mountain, 
after which it was named, and chiefly peopled with mem- 
bers of the Amlrera tribe, Who were induced by the grant 
of various privileges to settle there. Village after village 
Was raised by the Negroes liberated from the slave-ships 
who were brought thither. 

The chief object of this settlement was not commerciai 
gain so much as tfie civilization of the natives. To this 
end a distinct Society was formed in London in 1807, for 
the purpose of diffusing useful knowledge in Africa. Its 
efforts were aided by the excellent Missionary Societies of 
£ng\dii<]. In all the towns of the new colony schools were 
fbanded for aduks as well as children ; churches erected; 



160 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 

preachers of the Gospel of Christ and of brotherly love 
sent forth into the surrounding countries ; the neighbour- 
ing Negro princes won by presents, commercial advanta- 
ges, and the gratuitous instruction of their children in Eu- 
ropean arts and sciences ; Bibles distributed by thousands 
in the native languages ; journeys of discovery underta- 
ken ; Negroes of superior talents trained for teachers and 
even for missionaries— in short nothing has been neglected 
which could lead to the improvement of the social state 
among the inhabitants of the west coast of Africa. 

In 1821 an act of parliament passed for abolishing the 
African company, vesting its possessions in the British 
crown, and annexing these and all other territories of his 
majesty between the 20th degree of norfh latitude and the 
20th degree of south latitude, to Sierra Leone, and making 
them dependencies of that colony. Thus ail the British 
possessions scattered through forty degrees of latitude, ap- 
proaching on the south the colony of the Cape and on the 
north the empire of Morocco, are placed under one system 
of administration, from which measure great advantages 
to the civilization of Western Africa may reasonably be 
anticipated. 

Some Negro tribes dwelling in the vicinity of the colo- 
ny, in order to obtain security from the attacks of enemies 
by whom their people were either murdered or sold into 
slavery, have recently pkced themselves under the pro- 
tection of the British government and ceded their coun- 
tries to the crown, on condition that the undisturbed pos- 
session of their private property should be guaranteed to 
them. It was to support the horrible trade in slaves that 
the surrounding nations were constantly engaged in the 
sanguinary wars which have nearly depopulated the once 
rich and fertile countries of the Sherbro, which form part 
of these cessions, and from which it is computed that be- 
tween fifteen and twenty thousand wretched inhabitants 
were annually carried into slavery. The great slave-deal- 
ers, who retired from the country on the conclusion of this 
convention, resolved to re-establish their traffic by force : 
and Sir Charles Turner, who' succeeded the unfortunate 
Sir Charles M'Carthy in the government of Sierra Leone, 



BfERRA LtfONje. 161 

#as obliged to take active measures for subduing the in- 
surgents. 

By the return of 1822, Freetovrn, the capital of Sierra 
Leone, contained nearly six thousand souls, and thd frhole 
colony about seventeen thousand inhabitants : of these 
more than fifteen thousand were natives of Africa ; the 
rest being chiefly Europeans, Maroons, and Nova Scotia 
settlers. Of those born in Africa upwards of eleven thou- 
sand had been liberated from the holds of vessels, which 
were carrying them into interminable bondage. Nearly 
nine thousand of the hitter dwell in sixteen settlements, 
where schools are established and religious instruction is 
dispensed by the agents of the Church Missionary Society. 
At the end of the year 1826 the number of scholars if* 
these places and in Freetown amounted to two thousand 
and seventy-five, and that of communicants to four hun- 
dred and forty-three. In the preceding year the liberated 
Africans of these settlements, exclusively of Freetown, 
sold to government alone surplus produce to the amount 
of 3500/. 

When the late Sir Neil Campbell assumed the govern- 
ment of the colony, he formed the villages ofliberated Afri- 
cans into three divisions, which received names descriptive 
of their locality. The Eastern or River District comprises 
Kissey, Wellington, Allen Town, Hastings, Waterloo* 
and Calmont, which lie in a south-east direction from Free- 
town, in the order here mentioned, along the eastern bor- 
der of the colony on the Bunce River and the Timmanee 
Country. The Central or Mountain District comprises 
Leicester, Gloucester, Regent, Bathurst v Wilberforce, 
Charlotte, and Crassfield. The Western or Sea District 
comprises York, Kent, and the Bananas Islands. This 
division is well adapted to its object, the efficient and eco- 
nomical application of the labours of superintendents and 
teachers. 

About the year 1820, the late Sir George Collier, then ' 
commander of the British naval force on this station, in 
two reports on the African settlements, bore honourable 
testimony to the great improvement of the colony : — ■ 
f Roads," says he, " are cut in every direction, useful for: 
communication ; many towns and villages are built an<V l 

14*' 



I6£ SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 

others are building, as the black population increases 
More improvement, under all circumstances of climate 
and infancy of colony, is scarcely to be expected. I visit- 
ed all the Black towns and villages, attended the public 
schools and other establishments, and never witnessed in 
any population more contentment and happiness," 

The then governor, Sir Charles M'Carthy, also stated 
as the result of his own observation in the same year, that 
the whole of the country round Kissey, a place containing 
about thirteen hundred inhabitants, was in a state of very 
good cultivation ; displaying in every direction extensive 
fields of rice, cassada, and ground-nuts ; that the parish was 
not only likely to furnish that year sufficient for its own 
wants, but to supply its neighbours with every kind of 
produce then cultivated in the peninsula. Almost all the 
grain and vegetables brought to the market at Freetown 
are grown in this parish. The mountains close to the 
town afford the finest timber. Many of the inhabitants 
are employed in burning shells to make lime ; and, from 
the abundance of the shells and the facility of conveying 
them by water to Kissey, this place will probably become 
the chief mart for the supply of lime to every part of the 
colony. 

To show the scale upon which some of the public works 
here are executed, it will be sufficient to mention that, 
according to the Report of the Church Missionary Society 
for 1827, a road was then making from the settlement of 
Waterloo to Maharra, in the Timmanee country, about, 
one hundred miles distant, wm>h was expected to promote 
greatly the communications with the natives. 

The Americans are joining their exertions to those of 
the British for the suppression of that bane of African ci- 
vilization, the slave-trade, by the establishment of a colony 
of Free Blacks from America and liberated Africans. For 
this purpose land was purchased at Cape Mesurado, and 
thither the settlers removed in 1822, after a temporary re- 
sidence at Sierra Leone. They had not been long there > 
however, before they were attacked by the natives, whom 
they repulsed with great loss, but not without suffering so 
severely themselves as to be obliged to abandon the settle* 
raento Not daunted by this disaster,, the Colonization So 



SIEB11A LEONE. 163 

ciety, under whose auspices this enterprise was undertaken, 
sent out a second body of colonists. The territory pur- 
chased for this settlement has received the name of Libe- 
ria, and the district which comes more immediately within 
its influence extends about three hundred miles from the 
river Gallenas to the country of the Kromen. Its capital, 
named Monrovia, after the late President of the United 
States, already containing a population of one thousand 
souls, is situated about half a mile from the mouth of the 
river Mesurado, and defended by a strong fort. Four fac- 
tories, or trading establishments, have been formed on the 
coast ; between these and Monrovia a small schooner is 
kept constantly running, and this is one of the sources to 
which the new colony is indebted for its abundant means 
of subsistence and remarkable prosperity. The town is 
now perfectly secure from the natives, and its inhabitants 
not only enjuv in profusion the comforts of life but many 
of them have acquired considerable property. 

If greater success has iiot attended the efforts of the 
Christian labourers in this quarter, it is partly owing to the 
extreme insalubrity >f the climate to European constitu- 
tions and the ra id mortality of the missionaries engaged 
in the good work Hence it is obvious, that a main object 
with the philanthropic Societies, whose efforts are directed 
to the extension of the benevolent doctrines of Cftristianity, 
should be to provide native labourers to whom at least part 
of the task might be devolved. A few able Europeans 
may, therefore, by devoting themselves to the superinten- 
dence of seminaries or colleges of native youths in their 
own countries, both save a great expenditure of the lives 
of European teachers and contribute to the more rapid 
advance of Christianity among the heathen. 

The following pertinent remarks on this important sub- 
ject occur in a recent Report of one of the County Asso- 
ciations of the Church Missionary Society : — 

11 To raise Sierra Leone to its full efficiency as a pharos 
of light to Western Africa, three requisites are indispensa- 
bly necessary — 1st, The promotion of general education 
to such an extent that the English language shall be 
spoken in its native purity throughout the colony, and be 
whence transmitted to the neighbouring states — Sadly*. Th* 



J 64 SURVEY 6F CHRISTIANITY. 

establishment of two schools for the special purpose of 
qualifying pious natives to become schoolmasters and 
schoolmistresses, by affording them a superior and appro- 
priate education — and 3dly, The erection of an efficient 
Christian Institution, Wherein native Africans of superior 
intelligence and decided piety might be trained for the 
ministerial office. The re captured Negroes located in 
Sierra Leone speak every dialect of Western Africa, and 
will be the fittest instruments, when properly educated, to 
translate elementary works athd even the Scriptures them- 
selves into their own tongues: and, when grounded in the 
Arabic language and able to understand the Koran in the' 
original, they will be prepared to meet the Moslem teach- 
ers on their own ground, to oppose the Gospel of Christ to 
the law of Muhamed, where alone that law is gaining an 
increasing ascendancy over the human mind, and thus to 
bring Christianity into a fair and efficient competition with 
the dominant and only proselyting religion of Northern' 
and Western Africa. 

u With feelings of peculiar satisfaction, your Committed 
have perceived in the recent discoveries made by Major' 
f)enham and Captain Clapperton what may possibly re* 
rhove the grand difficulty, which has hitherto retarded the 
education of converts for missionary purposes from among 
the re-captured Negroes of Sierra Leone. That difficulty 
has been the insalubrity of the climate of Western Africa, 
arid the consequent want of a healthy spot for a Christian 
Institution. In the Bight of Benin, where the Niger emp-' 
ties itself by means of a Delta into the Atlantic, is situated' 
tlie island Fernando P6 ; where, to use the language of a 
modern author, 'health arid safety dwell; and where, 
commanding the outlets of the Niger, Great Britain would' 
command the trade, the improvement^ and the civilization 
of all Northern Central Africa.' A second salubrious 
situation where, as far as health is concerned, a Christian 
institution and schools might be conducted with perfect 
safety is mentioned by the same travellers : this is a high 
tkble-land within the tropic, chiefly in the parallel of 12^ 
dfc 13° north. Your Committee hail this mc-st important 
discovery as an opening of Providence for facilitating mis- 
Nonary exertions in Western Africa ; and they trust that-- 



SIESEA IEONE, 165 

the Society will be enabled by the increasing liberality and 
personal services of its friends to avail itself of this oppor- 
tunity of usefulness to the benighted children of Ham.'" 

The Committee of the Church Missionary Society enter- 
ing entirely into these views of their intelligent associates, 
are taking measures for placing the Christian Institution of 
Sierra Leone on an efficient footing. This assign has 
been the subject of much correspondence and deliberation, 
as the Society haYe come to the fixed determination of 
pr ►secutingj, by ai) means in their power, and in any place, 
whether in Europe, or in Africa, which may ultimately 
prove most eligible, the education of intelligent and pious 
natives, with the view of their becoming Christian teachers 
among their countrymen*. 

Meanwhile the British Government has authorized the 
formation of a settlement in the island of Fernando Po, 
and an experiment is about, to be made under the direc- 
tion of Lieutenant-colonel Denham on a portion of the 
liberated Africans, to communicate to them a practical 
knowledge of agriculture. It appears also that, during 
the brief government of the late Sir Neil Campbell, a 
new plan was formed for the education of the liberated 
African children, whom he proposed to concentrate into 
three large schools, one for each of the three districts, into 
which he had divided the villages ; but his death, which 
took place shortly afterwards, will probably lead to new 
arrangements. 

Thus has Sierra Leone become one of the most impor- 
tant points in these regions for the population of Africa. 
There, on a lately desert tract, jre now, as we have seen, 
upwards of seventeen thousand Negroes — mostly rescued 
from the clutches of ruthless slave- smugglers, instructed 
in the Christian religion and the arts of .civilized iife. 

A striking proof of the moral influence which the colony 
has acquired over die neighbouring tribes, even where 
{hen: strongest and most inveterate prejudices are con- 
cerned, was exhibited at the decease of King George of 
Br.ilom, who died in May 1826, at the advanced age, it 
is said, of 110 years. The Bulloms had not till this time 
suffered their Kings to die a natural death, but always 
despatched them when they considered them about to 



t66 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

expire, sacrificing two human victims, whom they burieff 
in the same grave. In the present instance, the fear of 
involving themselves in trouble, or " getting a palaver," 
as they term it, tvith Sierra Leone, led them to dispense 
with the cruel practice. 

From this spot too the knowledge of useful trades, the 
improved modes of cultivating rice and cotton, and the 
processes of agriculture and gardening, are spread fat 
around among the Negro tribes, and with them the doc- 
trines of the Christian religion, from Cape Negro to the 
gum-forests' on the Senegal. Philip Quaque, a black mis- 
sionary, preached the Gospel to the tribes on the Gold 
Coast, in the Amina language. It was proclaimed, as 
in the settlements of Sierra Leone, at Yongru Pomoh on 
the coast of Bulam, likewise at Bashie. and at CanofFe, on 
the shores of the Rib Pongas, at Gambier, on the river 
Dembia, on the island of Goree, in the Senegal, at the 
mouths of the Seneg&l, and in many other places: Bri- 
tish liberality cheerfully fbrnishes abundant contributions 
in support of the great Work of the civilization of Africa; 
and the successive governors; Sir Charles McCarthy in 
particular, have distinguished themselves by a real enthu- 
siasm in behalf of the sacred cause. 

Compared with such enterprises, indeed, all the earlier 
missionary attempts made on the west coast of Africa by 
the French and Portuguese must be regarded as insignifi- 
cant. In these no attention was paid to the melioration of 
the social state of the Negro tribes, by the introduction of 
schools and useful arts and by the improvement of agricul- 
ture The efforts of individuals were not seconded by their 
respective governments, and the good they effected in many 
instances expired with them or soon alter their decease. 

Thus, fur example, Christianity was planted some cen- 
turies back in the Negro kingdom of Barra, on the river 
Gambia. It was carried thither by French ecclesiastics 
from the French factory of Albreda, in the adjacent 
country. So early as the commencement of the eigh- 
teenth century, several Christian congregations were 
formed ; but for want of missionaries they were dissolved 
or degenerated. When the Abbe Demanet arrived there 
in the yea* 1761, he found remnants of the Christians m 



CltRJOTXAMTY OX THE GAMBIA. 1.6J 

seven villages only, where a priest had not been seen for 
twenty years. He there revived the love for Christianity, 
as well as in the Negro States of Sin, Thin, and Barbesin, 
in the neighbourhood of the isle of Goree. The King of 
Sin treated him courteously. " The Christians," said he 
Xo the Abbe, " are my best subjects. I worship, indeed, 
the same great God that thou dost ; but the mysteries of 
thy religion I cannot comprehend. Make all my people 
Christians if thou wilt. 1 shall have no objection." — The 
zealous missionary actually instructed and baptized about a 
thousand Negroes in a short time : but his labours pro* 
duced no permanent benefit, for the work begun by him 
was but feebly prosecuted, and at length totally forgotten 
in the wars and political revolutions of France. 

I shall subjoin here a remarkable circumstance, com- 
municated by Captain Smith, who was long resident at 
s Tripoli. He says, that among the Negro slaves, mostly 
of a vigorous, handsome race, brought from the interior 
s of Africa to Tripoli, there are many who call themselves 
I 1 Christians, though they are extremely ignorant and stran- 
gers alike to circumcision and to the most ancient sym- 
bol of Christianity — the Cross. One evening just as a 
ship belonging to the Pacha of Tripoli, bringing some of 
these slaves from Algiers, came to an anchor, the evening 
bell was rung in a vessel which lay at a little distance, 
The Negroes joyfully sprang up, called to their compa- 
nions, embracing one another with transport and exclaim* 
ing : " Campan ! Campan I" This Latin or Italian word 
led the interpreter to inquire the cause of the general 
joy. He was informed by the slaves, that in each of the 
Negro towns of their native country there was an open 
place, where stood a building provided with a bell. This 
bell is rung morning and evening for prayers, after which 
the priest delivers an exhortation to the assembly. The 
people knew nothing of idols, or images of saints, in 
their temples, but they seemed to have a sort of holy 
communion.— Where is the country of these black Chris 
lians situated ? 



168 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER VlIL 

THE WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS. 

Thus is this vast continent more neglected by Euro- 
peans than any other quarter of the globe. According to 
the testimony of Mollien, who travelled in 1818 through 
the interior of Africa to the sources of the Senegal and 
Gambia, the doctrine of Muhamed is making more and 
more progress among the nations of the interior, parti- 
eularly in the country of Cayor. The schools are every- 
where kept by Marabouts, and these teachers of the 
Koran are treated with as much respect by the pagans as 
by the M uh am edans themselves. Circumcision is more- 
over very general in these parts. Mollien observed at the 
same time that the Muhamedan Negroes are strict in the 
performance of the ceremonies of their religion, and that 
they are also more humane and more civilized than the 
heathen. In the interior of this portion of the globe the 
Christian is either despised or feared ; because the eager- 
ness after gold and other vices of Europeans are consi- 
dered as being in a great measure the effect of their reli- 
gion. 

It is not improbable that the naval powers of Europe, 
after the loss of their rich possessions in the West Indies 
and America, will seek compensation in Africa. Where 
could they find it but in that quarter of the world, which 
offers in" abundance copper, gold, ivory, precious stones, 
gum, spices, and numberless other commodities, which 
western luxury requires ? — in that where the most valua- 
ble of the vegetable productions of Asia and America may 
be naturalized without trouble in suitable climates ? Whi- 
ther could European sovereigns direct to greater advan- 
tage the current of emigration, which sets at present 
across the Atlantic, to add to the growing strength and 
wealth of America by agriculture and manufactures ? 



WEST AFRICAN ISLANDS. 168 

England has demonstrated since the commencement 
of the present century that it is easier to gain the good 
will of the Negro states by civilizing them than by force 
of arms ; and the traffic with them, instead of being dimi- 
nished, has increased since the abolition of the slave- 
trade. 

Next to the universal independence of America, the 
civilization of the Africans by religious instruction and 
the Christian faith will probably be the most beneficial 
result to the human race of all the changes in the general 
relations of States, which the present time is producing 
or preparing. 

The Portuguese have in all ages proved themselves 
zealous Catholics. In their West African Islands they, 
like the Spaniards, made a particular point of extermina- 
ting, with the aid of the Inquisition, all heathen, Jews, 
Muhamedans, and Protestant Christians. There is rather 
a superfluity than a want of churches, convents, and cha* 
pels. It is nevertheless well known, from the accounts 
of all modern travellers, how ignorant most of their clergy 
are. In many islands the friars and secular clergy are 
partly Negroes, partly Mulattoes, who receive but very 
scanty instruction. Hence it is not surprising that the 
trade of the greater part of the West African islands be- 
longing to Spain and Portugal is in the hands of the Eng- 
lish ; or that a considerable portion of the produce of the 
, Azore islands is paid for by Portugal with indulgences, 
dispensations, relics, images of saints, and the like. 



; 



15 



t>ART THE FOURTH. 



AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA— LAS CASA . 

Those wars of conversion which have been carried on 
by the disciples of Muhamed in three quarters of the globe, 
since they were commenced by the Arabian Prophet, 
surrounded by his heroes, the terrible Amru, the still more 
terrible Kaled, called the sword of God, Ali, Abubeker, 
and others, belong to the most disgraceful phenomena in 
the history of mankind. Writers express to this day a 
strong and just horror of the torrents of blood spilt in the 
three quarters of the old world for the diffusion of the doc- 
trines of the Koran. 

Truth, nevertheless, compels us to admit that the atro- 
cities of the Saracens have not surpassed those perpe- 
trated by the religious fury of Christians. Consider the 
millions sacrificed by the madness of the Crusades for the 
recovery of the holy sepulchre, or for the conversion of 
the north of Europe, since the time of Charlemagne ; or 
during the schism in the church, in massacres such as that 
of St. Bartholomew ; and in the auto-da-fes of the Inqui- 
sition ! Consider the wholesale destruction which attended 
the planting of the Cross on the American coasts, when 
these were scarcely discovered : — how nations were there 
exterminated and the relics of them driven into the unknown 
forests and mountains of the interior — how, in order to 
repeople. the deserts, their depopulators excited Africari 



AMERICA. 171 

tribes to hostilities against one another, that they might 
have opportunities of purchasing their prisoners of war — 
how millions of Blacks were transported across the Ocean 
to new regions of the earth, there to be detained for life 
and treated with greater cruelty than irrational brutes 1 

But no, these abominations, with which Christians pol- 
luted America, scarcely originated in religious fanaticism. 
That source would" have been too noble ; it was nothing 
but a base love of lucre, cloaked in the disguise of reli- 
gious zeal. Its impious enormities, nevertheless, found 
public defenders. A Doctor Sepulveda justified them, in 
a book printed at Rome, by divine and human laws, and 
by the example of the conduct of the people of God after 
the conquest of Canaan. 

This is not the proper place to treat of the founding of 
the different European settlements along the coasts of the 
American continent and on the islands, where Christian- 
ity at the same time obtained permanent abodes. Chris- 
tianity was long confined to the conquerors only. The 
independent heathen justly abominated a religion, which 
furnished occasion or pretext for crimes such as no natives 
of America could previously have conceived possible. 
There were too few genuine disciples of Christ, who, like 
the philanthropic Bartholomew de las Casas, might have 
exhibited their faith in all its simplicity and loveliness. It is 
remarkable that this illustrious martyr of beneficence is not 
enrolled among the saints of the Romish Church. The 
example of his virtues and his generous sentiments have, 
however, exalted him into the Saint of Humanity. His 
treatise on the question : " Can princes with a good con- 
science, by any right, or by virtue of any title, transfer citi- 
zens and subjects from their crowns to others ?" would 
probably be found worth reprinting even at the present day. 

In the first centuries subsequent to the discovery of 
America, the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Ca- 
puchins, rendered most service in preaching the Gospel in 
the West India Islands and on the continent. When at 
length the Dutch and English, following the example of 
the Spaniards and Portuguese, made conquests in the New 
World, the work of converting the Indians was zealously 
commenced by Protestant divines also. The British So- 



172 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 

eiety for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts,, 
founded by act of Parliament in 1697, bestowed particular 
attention on the English settlements in North America. 
Its efforts in the holy work have been emulated during the 
eighteenth century by the United or Moravian brethren. 
Filled with generous enthusiasm to proclaim Christ, they 
have penetrated into the extreme North of America, into 
the snow-covered deserts of Labrador and Greenland, to 
the vicinity of the yet undiscovered pole, whither neither 
the love of conquest nor the thirst of gold has yet been 
able to allure other Europeans. 



CHAPTER II. 

LOST CHRISTIANITY ON THE EAST COAST OF GREENLAND 
— THE VENERABLE HANS EGEDE — THE BRETHREN'S. 
CONGREGATIONS IN GREENLAND. 

There is a tradition that Greenland was discovered and 
peopled so early a3 the eighth century by Eric Redhead, a 
Norman, exiled from Ireland. In a Bull, issued by Pope 
Gregory the Fourth in the year 835, the conversion of the 
Icelanders and Greenlanders was especially recommended 
to St. Ansgar, the first apostle of the North. In the 
fourteenth century both the east and west coast of Green- 
land were occupied by the Normans. On the nineteen 
fiords, or bays, on the east side, were one hundred and 
ninety villages and hamlets, divided into twelve parishes 
together with two convents and an episcopal see, and on 
the nine fiords on the west side there were in four parishes 
about a hundred scattered places, which extended as high 
as the sixty-fifth degree of latitude. The first bishop was 
Arnold, a learned Norwegian priest, who came to Green- 
land in the year 1123. 

Famine and disease, however, swept away many of the 
inhabitants, and after the fourteenth century North Ameri- 
can savages from the coasts of Labrador, known at an 



GREENLANP. 173 

earlier period to theGreenlandersby the name of Skrallings, 
thronged hither in their stead. These were Esquimaux, 
probably a Tartar tribe driven from the north of Asia, and 
which had not been able to find a permanent abode even 
in barren Labrador. The remnant of the Normans re* 
treated before them to the more inhospitable east coast of 
Greenland, where at length almost all traces of them were 
lost. It was only now and then that they appeared singly, 
issuing from their deserts hemmed in by the sea and by 
ice-mountains, and dreaded as cannibals by the Esquimaux. 

Greenland was subsequently forgotten till the commer- 
cial spirit of the fifteenth century awoke. The Christian 
Congregations which had subsisted there centuries before 
Were again thought of, and it was hoped that an intercourse 
might be opened with them. Adventurous mariners sought 
them in vain on the east coasts. They found only blood- 
thirsty Savages and masses of ice. 

After the Danes, under seven kings, had ineffectually 
endeavoured to find the lost Greenland of their ancestors, 
they at length succeeded, through the Christian courage 
and perseverance of a single individual. 

Near the rugged Kiolian mountains in Norway lived 
Hans Egede, pastor of the parish of Vogens, unknown to 
the world and unacquainted with it. He one day re- 
collected having read that in former times Greenland had • 
been inhabited by Christians. From mere curiosity he 
inquired of a friend at Bergen, who was engaged in the 
whale fishery, what he knew concerning the state of Green- 
land. His heart ached when he heard of the paganism of 
the straggling individuals who were found, often to the de- 
struction of mariners, on the desolate coasts. The idea 
flashed across his mind, that he ought to go thither and en- 
lighten the darkness with the word of Christ. He shrank 
nevertheless from the thought, for he had a wife and child, 
a moderate stipend, and no other resources. This was in 
the year 1703. Strenuously as he strove to banish the 
idea, it haunted him continually, and he could obtain no 
peace, till he proceeded to carry it into effect, and commu- 
nicated it in 1711 in hopes of finding support. He ad- 
dressed petitions to the bishops of Drontheim and Bergen ? 
to the College of Missions at Copenhagen, and to the royal 

15* 



174 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

authorities, with proposals for founding a settlement in 
Greenland, forming a commercial company, &c. Nobody 
would listen to him. His wife and his relatives assailed 
him with reproaches ; the superior authorities and persons 
of wealth and distinction treated him in their way as a vision- 
ary or enthusiast ; while others openly ridiculed his plans. 
In 1715 he deemed it necessary to attempt a vindication 
of himself against all these calumnies and misconceptions. 
As soon as he had once gained the assent of his wife 
to his bold plan, things went on more smoothly. He 
then ceased to prepare petitions and memorials, re- 
signed his office, hastened to Copenhagen, pleaded his 
cause in person, and at length gained his point so far that 
a vessel was equipped, and he was placed at the head of 
a little colony, with the appointment of missionary to 
Greenland. On the the 2d of May, 1721, he embarked 
with his wife and four young children, overjoyed at having 
thus attained, after ten years' perseverance, the object of 
his wishes. 

With the Danes who accompanied him he founded on 
the west coast the settlement of Godhaab ; dwelt among 
the Savages who were at first shy of the new colonists ; 
gained their mistrustful hearts ; learned, with his children, 
their language ; endured all privations with them ; tra- 
versed amid many perils this region of rocks and ice in 
various directions ; caused search to be commenced for 
minerals, in hopes of rendering the country of importance 
to the Danes, and attempts to be made to grow corn, to 
secure those who had come with him from danger of famine. 
All the pains that were taken to obtain a permanent foot- 
ing in this inhospitable land, seemed, however, to be thrown 
away. The colonists were beset at once by cold, hunger, 
and the treachery of the natives. It was only now and 
then that Egede gained over individuals to Christianity ; 
and in the space often years he baptized but one hundred 
and fifty children. The Danish government began to be 
tired of the expense, and in 1731 King Christian VI. re- 
called the colonists. All were disheartened excepting 
Egede. With his family and ten seamen, for whom there 
was not room in the ships sent to convey the people back 



OBEENLAKD. 175 

to Denmark, he remained in Greenland. There he waited 
two years longer. His fortitude triumphed. 

Not only did the king restore the Greenland trade, and 
afford fresh support to the mission, but three new preachers 
of salvation, Matthew, David, and Christian Stach, sent by 
the Brethren's Congregation at Herrnhut, arrived at once* 
This was in the year 1733. They were soon joined by 
several others. They founded the settlement of New 
Herrnhut near Godhaab ; and subsequently, as their labours 
became more prosperous, a second mission, named Lich- 
tenfels, in 1758, that they might have access to the more 
remote Savages. Thus did they, with a courage undaunted 
by hardships, prosecute the sacred work begun by Egede, 
even after that venerable man had in 1 736 returned to Co- 
penhagen, sick and infirm, for the benefit of his health,' for 
the better education of his children, and for the purpose of 
serving more effectually the interests of the mission.* 

With the conversion of the Savages commenced their cU 
vilization. They became habituated to permanent abodes. 
So early as the year 1762, four hundred and seventeen 
Greenlanders dwelt together at New Herrnhut and about 
one hundred and seventy at Lichtenfels. To these settle- 
ments were added Lichtenau in 1774, and Friedrichsfeld 
in 1824, and in 1825 the number of Christian Greenland* 
ers resident at the three former places amounted to about 
one thousand four hundred persons. Near these missions 
and Godhaab have been formed several Danish establish- 
ments, which are gradually acquiring more and more influ 
ence in softening the rude manners of the natives. Edi* 
fying works, and in 1799 the Bible, were translated for the 
converts into their mother tongue, and printed at Copen- 
hagen, with Roman letters. The missionaries have also 
i founded schools, that none of the baptized children may 
grow up without instruction. 

Since the arrival of Hans Egede a century has now 
elapsed. Much has been accomplished, but yet much less 
than might have been expected from the efforts of a hun- 

Kdred years. Nature opposes great obstacles, and not less 
the inveterate prejudice of the Greenlanders against fo- 

* He died in 175S at Stnbbelriabingj in the island of Falster, 



176 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

feigners^ and their adherence to the notions of their ances^ 
tors. In later times too the work of conversion has been 
carried on with less zeal than at first. 

It requires no ordinary perseverance to carry the light of 
divine revelation to the heathen, to disregard all considera- 
tions, and to pass one's life in those dreary deserts of rocks 
and snow, where no verdure is to be seen except at the 
little towns and villages : for while the whole country is 
bare and barren, the tops and sides of the houses are over* 
grown with grass and scurvy-grass ; and the surrounding 
sand, fertilized for many years by the blood and blubber 
of seals, produces the finest herbage. In the distance 
smoke extinct volcanoes, and the vast lofty ice-fields emit 
a radiance somewhat resembling the aurora borealis and 
called the ice-blink. At the foot of the mountains rise, in 
the place of forests, series of masses of ice full of holes and 
clefts, of singular forms, sometimes like churches adorned 
with steeples, sometimes like pillars, arches, ruined pak 
aces, semi-transparent, in the sun emitting ray3 of a pale 
green and silver colour from the snow, and blue from the 
clear ice. In severe winters water freezes on the fire be- 
fore it gets warm and boils ; and spirit of wine frequently 
becomes as thick as frozen oil. The ground is not tho- 
roughly thawed till June ; but in the longest days the sun 
melts even the pitch about the ships. At this season float- 
ing ice-bergs dance in the sea about the coasts. The Eu- 
ropeans raise in their gardens salad, cabbage, leeks, and 
radishes ; but all vegetables are small, and even the turnips 
seldom grow to a larger size than a pigeon's egg. Mosses.* 
fungi, and lichens, alone thrive on the unproductive rocks 
and a few species of grasses in the sheltered valleys ; while 
stunted fruit-bearing shrubs, dwarf birches, low alders, and 
service-trees, delight the eye by their appearance in the 
fiords of the southern parts of the country alone. 

It is impossible to specify the number of inhabitants 
living dispersed in these as yet too imperfectly known soli- 
tudes. You may travel for days together without seeing a 
human creature. According to the reports of navigators, 
there were, anterior to the year 1 730, about thirty thousand 
inhabitants on that part of the west coast where the missions 
and (he Danish settlements are now situated. By 1746 



GREENLAND. 177 

this number had decreased one-third. Crantz computed 
the total population of the west coast in 1762 at about ten 
thousand only. In the year 1805 there were numbered 
but six thousand and forty-six in the environs of the 
Danish settlements. Crantz, however, knew from the 
statements of the Greenlanders that, so high as the seventy 
eighth degree, the country was inhabited by people who 
subsisted upon fish, white bears, and eider-fowl. The Bri- 
tish discovery ships, sent out towards the north pole, actu- 
ally found in 1818, between the seventy-sixth and seventy- 
eighth degree, a solitary tribe of Esquimaux, who consider- 
ed the world around them as one interminable glacier and 
themselves as the whole human race, and who are report- 
ed to have no conception of the existence of a Supreme 
Being. 

The last assertion, however, was rather too precipitate. 
The English staid much too short a time among these 
peeple and were too ignorant of their language to be able 
to form any judgment respecting their abstract ideas. For, 
among all the nations and tribes on the face of the globe* 
not one has yet been discovered, which, upon more intimate 
acquaintance, had not, so soon as it had constructed a 
language for itself, combined with the first notions of ex- 
istence, the idea also of a superior unknown power. God 
hath revealed himself in the universal feelings of all minds. 
The natives of West Greenland too were at first supposed 
to have no conception of a Deity; but the deeper Europeans 
penetrated, by the acquisition of their language, and by a 
longer intercourse with them, into the secrets of their souls, 
the more the germs of religion were there developed to the 
eye of the observer. They talk of superior and inferior 
spirits. They know of the creative breath of Pirksoma — 
" him who is above" — of Torngarsuk. a good spirit sub- 
ordinate to him v the oracle of their angekoks, or priests, 
who dwells in subterranean realms of bliss ; of an evil 
spirit who resides at the bottom of the sea, and whose 
house is guarded by ferocious seals, which stand erect ; 
of the continued existence of their souls, tarngeks — from 
the very affinity of which name with that of the good spirit, 
Torngarsuk, much may be inferred — after the dissolution 
of the body. But to the great spirit Torngarsuk they pay 
neither reverence nor service, because, as Crantz expresses 



178 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

it, " they consider him as much too beneficent to desire to 
be propitiated or bribed." 

Respecting the state of the Christian missions in south 
and west Greenland of late years we know but little. So 
much, however, we know, that these countries need a more 
considerable number of devoted missionaries from Europe 
— in 1792 there were but five — and that the congregations 
of the United Brethren on these coasts consist of about one 
thousand souls. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE MISSIONS IN LABRADOR — PAGANISM IN THE EXTREME 
NORTH OF AMERICA. 

Whatever lives and breathes at the yet undiscovered 
north pole of our globe is still a mystery. The northern- 
most region with which we are acquainted is a dreary 
world of rocky islands, called Spitzbergen, where white 
bears, foxes, and reindeer, nevertheless, find some food, 
and snow and ice-birds flutter, about the bare crags. But 
here, where winter transforms the ocean about the islands 
into an endless plain of ice, where the longest night lasts 
five months, and where, on the other hand, the heat of 
summer is sometimes intolerable, dwell but a few Russian 
settlers for the sake of the fishery. 

Under somewhat more southern latitudes, about Hud- 
son's Bay, where indeed the climate is still severe, where 
the soil is rendered unfit for cultivation by an almost ten 
months' winter, but yet stunted varieties of the pine rear 
their heads above the snow, and where the species of 
animals are more numerous, the human race also is seen 
more numerously diffused. These people are allied to the 
Greenlanders in their manners, language, and way of 
thinking. 

The inhabitants of the rude and extensive country of 
Labrador call themselves, like the Greenlanders, Karalits, 
or Keralis, (men) and the Europeans Kablunaits, The 



Labrador. 170 

Esquimaux, the Skrallings of Greenland, were no doubt 
originally but tribes cast out and persecuted by them. 
The English have long frequented these coasts for the sake 
of trade, on account of their fish and furs. The Hudson's 
Bay Company have several settlements and factories there 
for the security of their commerce with the Savages. It 
Was not till 1764 that these parts were visited by Christian 
missionaries, who, in this instance also, were Moravian 
Brethren, and who boldly fixed their abode in the vicinity 
of the factories. There they founded in 1771 their first 
mission, Nain, where eight German missionaries dwelt 
together to proclaim the word of God, and to ennoble half- 
brutalized men. Subsequently, when they were joined by 
more assistants from Europe, and chiefly from Germany, 
they commenced in 1776 the new settlement of Okkak, to 
the north of Nain, under the fifty-eighth degree ; and still 
later, in 1782, that of Hopedale to the southward. 

Providence has blest the labours of these pious men. 
In 1808 several hundred families of the Keralis, civilized 
and industrious, dwelt in affecting unity and devotion 
around Nain, Okkak, and Hopedale. Here are held 
pious offices for exalting the soul ; here are established 
schools for the children of the long-neglected natives. Not 
only are there many of the people who can read, but 
many too find no difficulty in expressing their thoughts in 
writing ; and the first three Gospels, translated into their 
language, and printed at the cost of the British Bible 
Society, were distributed in the autumn of 1814 among 
their schools. 

A far more numerous population than is found in the 
environs of the missions animates the northern and 
western coasts of Labrador. From those parts Esqui- 
maux caravans have all along come from time to time to 
the congregations of the Brethren and the British settle- 
ments for the sake of traffic. This circumstance induced 
j Benjamin Kohlmester, one of the missionaries at Okkak, 
i to explore those countries in the spring of 1811. He 
proceeded along the coast to Cape Chudleigh, under the 
sixty-first degree of latitude, and from this north point of 
Labrador south-westward to Ungawa Bay. 

He set out on this tour on the 19th of June, as soon ar* 



180 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

the bay of Okkak had become clear of ice. Accompa- 
nied by four Esquimaux families and others, he coasted 
between floating ice-bergs, and was frequently detained 
by fields of ice. From the bare rocks here and there 
thundered cataracts, descending from fifty to sixty feet 
perpendicular, and spreading below into a cloud of vapour. 
Eagles nestled on the summit of rocks, the green, red, 
and yellow stone of which, displaying the most fantastic 
shapes, seemed sometimes to represent colonnades, at 
others Gothic castles and churches. They saw verdant 
valleys, where the golden potentilla, tussilago, and arnica, 
were in flower ; hills clothed to a considerable height 
with low shrubs, dwarf birches and alders ; and an ash-gray 
rock, emitting a yellowish-white vapour with a strong 
sulphureous smell. This substance is so corrosive, that a 
drop of it falling on tinned iron consumed the metal in a 
few minutes. Farther northward, in the country of Ser- 
liarutsi, they discovered ruins of ancient Greenland settle- 
ments, walls, and graves, about which the tradition of the 
passage of the Keralis, who fled from Canada and 
Labrador to the north (to Greenland), is still current 
among the Esquimaux. They were every where received 
with surprise and hospitality by the tribes of savages who 
had never till then beheld a European. 

An attempt has very recently been commenced by the 
Wesleyan Missionary Society to found a permanent 
mission on the west coast of Labrador to the south of the 
settlements of the United Brethren. 

New Wales, on the west side of Hudson's Bay, ex- 
tending to the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, is a still 
wilder country than Labrador ; it is inhabited by Esqui- 
maux, who subsist by hunting and fishing, and some 
hundreds of Europeans in the service of the Hudson's 
Bay Company. But no apostle of Christ has yet had the 
courage to penetrate hither, or into the immense plains, 
mountains, and forests, which, situated to the north of 
Canada, are the abodes of the North Indians, the Copper 
Indians, the Athapuwskows, the Nathanas, the Chippe- 
ways, and other nomadic tribes. Daring fur-traders alone 
have ventured from time to time into these regions, un- 
known to the rest of the world, except from the travels of 



RED ItlVER COLONY. 18! 

^Mackenzie, performed for the purpose of discovery, from 
Montreal to the Icy Ocean and the South Sea. 

If the Father of the Universe revealed by Jesus is net 
known in these northern wilds of America, they never- 
theless resound the praise of the invisible " Great Spirit," 
as he is called by the Savages. Their household gods too 
are dear to their simple minds. They are not ignoraRt 
of the immortality of their souls. The Chippeways tell of 
a delicious island, to which departed spirits are conveyed. 
They too have priests and high-priests, sacrifices, and 
religious rites. Our acquaintance, however, with the 
religious conceptions of the tribes which occupy the 
extreme north of America, from Baffin's and Hudson's 
Bay to Cook's and Behring's Straits, and Nootka Sound, 
is exceedingly imperfect : nay, we scarcely yet know the 
names of all these tribes. They timidly withdraw, as the 
Europeans extend their settlements, from both the east 
and west coast of this continent into the unexplored 
interior. Here, in the wilds of the primitive forests to 
the southward, or in the vast Highlands where, from the 
everlasting snows of inaccessible mountains, the Missouri, 
Mackenzie, Nelson, Columbia, and other rivers, pursue 
their course to Hudson's Bay, the South Sea, and the 
icebound North ; in those almost endless plains, where 
the soil has scarcely sufficient depth for the nourishment 
of plants, and man and his reindeer are forced to be. 
-content with the short crisped moss of the rocky desert :- — 
-here is the secure retreat of the aboriginal natives of 
America. 

An attempt has indeed very recently been made by the 
Church Missionary Society to carry the Gospel into these 
wilds, in the establishment of a mission at the colony of 
the Hudson's Bay Company, on the Red River, in 1820. 
The Rev. Mr. West, who then proceeded to that place as 
chaplain to the Company, was appointed to superintend 
this mission, the sphere of which is co-extensive with the 
countries over which the Hudson's Bay Company have 
trading establishments, stretching from Canada to the 
Pacific Ocean, and as far northward as has hitherto been 
explored. No estimate has yet been formed of the number 
•of Indians inhabiting these immense countries ; but a 

16 



182 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

promising commencement has been made among them in 
the establishment of schools at the Red River colony, and 
in the erection of churches in wilds where sabbath-bell 
had never yet tolled since the creation. 

The accounts from this quarter, in the spring of 1827, 
will show what powerful natural obstacles the mission- 
aries have here to contend with. 

" News of the most deplorable kind," writes one of the 
missionaries in February, " arrives daily from the plains. 
The Canadian freemen have for some time been subsisting 
on their leather tents, parchment windows, buffalo robes, 
doe shoes, &c. They have devoured all the carcasses of 
horses, dogs, and other animals, that have died since the 
commencement of winter: it is further stated that the 
dead bodies of those who have perished have been eaten 
by their surviving companions." The distress of these 
people induced the missionaries to set on foot a contribu- 
tion among the Protestants for their relief. 

In April we have the following report from the same 
writer : — " A striking combination of circumstances tends 
at present to throw a gloom over the temporal interests of 
this colony. The failure of the buffalo in the hunting- 
grounds commenced the distress ; since that time the 
season has exceeded both in duration and severity any 
former instance of the kind within the memory of the 
oldest inhabitant. The settlers have for a long time been 
obliged to support their cattle entirely on wheat and 
barley, and the consumption has been so great as to lead 
me to apprehend a scarcity of seed for the soil. The 
season is getting so late as to render it probable that no 
wheat crops at all can be expected, and should any tiling 
occur to prevent the prosperity of barley and potatoes, we 
shall be threatened with a famine." 

The distress occasioned by the severity of the weather 
was aggravated by a destructive inundation, from the be- 
ginning of May to the middle of June, in the course of 
which nearly every house, excepting the dwellings, school* 
houses, and churches of the missionaries, was swept away, 
and the country laid under water as far as the eye could 
reach. The missionaries, in common with the rest of the 
inhabitants, were obliged for about a month to leave the*u= 
- dwellings and reside in tents pitched on elevated ground. 



BED RIVEU COLOXY. 183 

[ The Russians, crossing over from the north of Asia to 
the west coasts of America, are spreading along them more 
and more and in greater number. Their fur-traders and 
hunters, cruel and rapacious, drive back with rude violence 
the affrighted Savages. Not a thought of converting or 
civilizing the heathen ever enters the mind of any officer 
of the Russian American Company. On the peninsula of 
Alashka, the inhabitants of which, during the last century, 
were computed at sixty thousand, there were seen in 1809 
but a few hundred. Since the Russians founded in 1 804 
their settlement, of New Archangel, the hunted natives have 
sought refuge in remote regions beyond the reach of Euro- 
peans. 

It needs not indeed the exercise of inhumanities towards 
the Indians to drive them from the neighbourhood of 
Europeans. Simple children of nature, they observe with 
horror the superiority and effects of European arts and 
vices. They shrink from a religion, preached to them by 
men who boast of being sure of heaven after death, though 
during their lives they turn th^ world into a hell. The 
primitive American stedfastly prefers the mode of life of 

I his ancestors to the indulgences introduced by strangers, 
and the independence of Nature to the slavery of social 
ordinances and permanent abodes. Thus, in 1799, 
Mackenzie saw a whole colony of Iroquois emigrate to the 
Saskatchiwine river, though they had from childhood dwelt 
nine English miles from Montreal, lived among Romish 

: missionaries, and been instructed by them, 



> 



i $ 4~ SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SURVEY OF THE TWO CANADAS ASTONISHING PROGRESS 

OF RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION AMONG THE SAVAGE 
TRIBES IN AND NEAR THE UNITED STATES AND THE 
SPANISH TERRITORIES IN NORTH AMERICA. 

In the west and north of Canada, to the Asiatic Ocean 
and the Icy Sea, and southward to the uncertain limits 
of the United States and the Mexican territory, over an 
area of more than two million five hundred thousand square 
miles, an area equal to that of all Europe, the ancient un- 
broken paganism reigns in a variety of forms. As yet we 
scarcely know the names of all the nations by which it is 
inhabited, to say nothing of their religious notions. Even 
in the territories of the United States and in the British 
and Spanish possessions in North America, there dwell 
many independent Indian tribes who worship fetishes and 
know nothing of the purer revelations of God. It is only 
along the sea-coasts, in the towns, villages, and settlements 
of European colonists, that the Christian religion prevails. 
Attempts have, however, been made, from time to time 
and at different points, with various success, to communi- 
cate the sacred li^ht of the Gospel to the savage tribes. 

In Upper Canada, to the south-west of the Utuwa liver, 
where the English episcopal church predominates, dwell 
also some Quakers, Mennonites, Moravians, and Dunkers, 
especially in the district of Kingston. The Protestants in 
this quarter have for many years past done much for the 
religious and moral cultivation of the neighbouring Indian 
hordes. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
has missions of its own for the conversion of the Mohawks, 
both at Kingston and at the town of Niagara on the river 
of that name. The Moravian Brethren have several such 
institutions, and by their missionaries they have already 
founded whole colonies of Christian Indians, who dwell 
together in fraternal harmony, engaged in agriculture, 
breeding cattle, weaving, the preparation of sugar fron? 
maple juice, and Qther oQGujpaiionsv 



tmfTED STATES OP X0RTH AMERICA. 185 

In Lower Canada, formerly a French colony, the Catho- 
lic church prevails. Since the English have become 
masters of the country, the clergy seem to have fallen off 
both in point of education and in their zeal for the conver- 
sion of the heathen. " The priests in Canada," says the 
Duke de Rochefoucault-Liancourt in his Travels, " are 
precisely what they are in general among us and every where 
else, subtle, ambitious, supporters of arbitrary power, when 
it is disposed to increase their influence and wealth, and 
will not allow either freedom of thought or independence 
of judgment. The majority of the priesthood can do no 
more than read and write, and are ignorant and super- 
stitious in the highest degree." 

The French revolution was beneficial to these coun- 
tries, inasmuch as it caused many emigrant priests to set- 
tle there ; and the piety of these men, heightened by suf- 
ferings, and their talents, acquired by a superior education, 
furnished a pattern to the others. By their means too the 
nearly extinct spirit for the diffusion of Christianity was 
revived. 

The bishop of Quebec has under him one hundred and 
twenty-nine parish priests and missionaries. The latter 
may be considered as the ministers of the Christian Huron 
villages on the North shore of Lake Erie, of the great 

., Indian colony of Arbre Croche, and of other Indian set- 
tlements, which, as foundations of former times, they 
rather keep up than increase. 

In the United States of North America infinitely greater 
zeal is manifested for the conversion and civilization of 

] the Savages. Here we find an evident rivalry of all reli- 

; gions and all churches to diffuse the knowledge and wor*- 
ship of God. This would perhaps be least expected in a 
federal state, whither thousands seem to repair merely for 
the sake of a subsistence or to enjoy civil liberty, and 
where general toleration is the fundamental principle of 
most of the constitutions — a principle which is condemned, 
as might be expected, by the great majority of the Euro- 
pean clergy. For the latter, unmoved by the convictions 
of plain human reason, which teaches that with so many 

j degrees of national civilization one uniform mode of divine 
Worship is impracticable; unmoved by the picture of pasr 

t6* 



i8t> SlTRYElT of christiakity. 

ages ; unmoved by the example of the merciful God, wndh 
is the father of the suckling as well as of the hoary philo- - 
sopher, of the heathen in the wilderness as well as of the 
disciple of Jesus ; unmoved by the sublime doctrine of 
Christ himself and his apostles, that whoever does right 
and loves God is agreeable to him- condemn in their 
proud orthodoxy all who are not of their own opinion,, 
and perceive in a liberal indulgence of religious convic- 
tions merely a sinful indifference to religion itself. 

The spirit of the constitution of the North American 
States is a truly great, a truly Christian, spirit, because it 
is most consonant with the arrangements of Nature : it 
assumes no insolent authority over the conscience ; it 
embraces with equal affection men of all persuasions. 
Whoever acknowledges the true God, consequently the 
Jew, and even the Muhamedan, has the free enjoyment 
of civil rights in the greater part of these States ; whoever 
is a Christian, no matter to what denomination he belongs, 
is admissible to any office. Thus about seventy different 
sorts of Christian churches flourish in peace beside one ano 
ther; and each church, each congregation, pays the minis- 
ters whom it chooses for itself. Catholics spread themselves 
by the side of Protestants ; and the fanatic Trappists, like 
the fanatic Shakers, here find an undisturbed abode. 
Here insensate religious animosities disappear. It is de- 
lightful to see Protestants contributing to the erection or 
Catholic churches, and on the other hand Catholic parents,\ 
for want of priests of their own communion, carrying their 
new-born infants to Protestant ministers to be baptized 
according to the Romish ritual. Here the thunders of 
(he Vatican, which still frequently terrify European sove- 
reigns, are unknown ; here are no unchristian prohibitions 
against marriages between persons of different churches ; 
here rule God and the laws, not priests, not concordats, riot 
ata elect church, which makes citizens of a different per- 
suasion either outcasts or step-children of the State. 

The European emigrants who, mourning over the de- 
fects of their ancient countries, transport themselves acros f 
the ocean to the New World, are in general more reli- 
giously disposed by their lot than those who remain behind 
in their- accustomed sphere. They enter a strange land. 



UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 187 

where they have no friend but their God, and they cling 
to him with closer attachment than ever. Many fathers 
in their solitudes baptize their children themselves ; many 
mutually administer the holy communion to each other, 
as the disciples of Jesus did after he had quitted them. 
Religion has always existed before the priesthood. 

Missionaries of the most diverse sects repair preaching 
to the wilds, the primitive abodes ot the savages, unsoli- 
cited, unpaid : they have penetrated far beyond the Mis- 
sissippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio, and have founded 
congregations of converted heathen. In all the cities and 
states there are numerous Missionary Societies, especially 
among the Protestants. The " Society for the Propaga- 
tion of the Gospel among the Heathen" which held its 
first meeting at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, on the 21st 
of September, 1787, and was a few months later legally 
acknowledged by that state, has been particularly active. 
Not content to confine their attention to the neighbouring 
hidian tribes, the Americans established in 1 8 1 2 a u Soci- 
ety for Foreign Missions," which has sent out messengers 
of salvation to the islands of East and South India. With 
(he number of foreign settlers and of the rapidly rising 
cities, towns, and colonies, the zeal for the diffusion of 
Christianity far and near increases also. The circulation 
of the Sacred Scriptures in all languages contributes not a 
little to encourage this zeal. In 1827 there were in the 
United States five hundred and seventy-eight Bible Socie- 
ties : and their number and activity in all parts continue 
to augment, even among the Catholics themselves, in spite 
of the Pope's Bull. Among these laudable associations 
there is even a "• Bible Society for Africa," which was es- 
tablished at Philadelphia in J816. 

From an official report, drawn up by the Rev. Dr.. 
Morse, we learn that the number of the Indians within 
the territories of the United States amounts to no more 
than 47 1 ,000. These may be considered as forming three^ 
grand divisions, namely, those residing eastward of the 
Mississippi, to the number of 120,000 ; between the Mis- 
sissippi and the Rocky Mountains 180,000; and westward 
of the Rocky Mountains 171,000. The whole numbei 
of tribes and branches dispersed over this vast tract of 



188 SttRVElT OF CHRISTiAtfltt. 

country is about two hundred and sixty, of which about 
seventy are in the first, division, ninety in the second, and 
one hundred in the third. Some of these tribes are very 
small : one has dwindled down to fifteen persons, while 
the Choctaws amount to 25,000, the Creeks to 20,000 
and the Cherokees to 11,000. The proportion of war- 
riors to the whole number of souls is about one to five, 
except in the tribes which dwell among the Whites, where 
the proportion is as one to three. 

Of the number of the aborigines of the North American 
continent living to the southward of the territory of the 
United States, and of those who range the boundless 
plains to the north and north-west, no estimate has yet 
been formed. 

Many of the small tribes of the Creeks, Delawares, 
Iroquois, Hurons, &c, are already converted to the Chris- 
tian faith, and to the missions of the United Brethren this 
glorious result is chiefly owing. Together with a holy 
faith many of these tribes have adopted milder manners? 
built permanent settlements, and embraced more useful 
occupations. Thus to the Quakers of New-York belongs 
the credit of having first made the words of eternal love 
and the civilization or polished nations dear to the tribe of 
the Onondagos. These once ferocious Savages, now 
brethren of the European settlers, cultivate their extensive 
fields in peace, pasture their numerous herds at the foot 
of the Alleghany Mountains, and make sugar, soap, and 
many sorts of European stuffs. 

The name of the Iroquois is still proverbial in Europe 
on account of their ancient barbarity. But they are 
savages no longer ; they have learned to know T the Eternal 
Father of the Universe through Jesus. To the west of 
Carolina are to be seen many of their villages, some of 
them neatly built. Many hundreds of persons of Euro* 
pean extraction dwell quietly among them and are partly 
married to Iroquois women. In their towns they have 
public buildings, churches, and artisans. Their schools 
and school-books are highly commended. The Lancas- 
trian mode of instruction is general among them. It is 
in truth one of the most remarkable signs of the times 
that public instruction, is more zealously encouraged among 



UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 189* 

the Iroquois than in many countries of Europe, where 
perfidious or prejudiced counsellors of princes, a nobility 
fond of power, or a priesthood anxious to keep the people 
in darkness, would rather suffer the schools for the lower 
classes to crumble in ruin, and oppose to the utmost of 
their power the diffusion of knowledge among the pea- 
santry, that they may retain under their yoke a race of 
human brutes, from whose ignorance they have no oppo- 
sition to fear. What friend of humanity is there whose 
heart does not thrill to its utmost recesses at such a sight ! 
The Iroquois are regularly advancing in civilization. 
Their most common occupations, besides those of agri- 
culture, horticulture, and the breeding of cattle, are spin- 
ning and weaving; but they have also saltpetre- works, 
gunpowder-mills, blacksmiths, and even gold and silver- 
smiths. 

The civilization of these and other savage tribes is 
one of the most laudable acts of the government of 
the \orth American States. On the Five Nations, as 
they are called, it expends annually the sum of ten thou- 
sand dollars f >r the purchase of agricultural implements 
and tools of all kinds. The Brethren's congregations, the 
Methodists, the Baptists, and the Quakers, particularly 
distinguish themselves, in concert with the American 
Board of Missions, by their zeal for diminishing the bar- 
barism of the aboriginal inhabitants of America. The 
Mohawks, the Oneidas, and others, already have, like the 
Iroquois, schools for teaching writing, reading, arithmetic, 
&c. The town of Tumssassa, belonging to the Seneca- 
Indians, near the Alleghany river, consists chiefly of houses 
with two floors, and has an elegant church. The Hurons 
cultivate the land and trade in corn. 

Respecting the present state of the Cherokee Indians, 
a public address delivered by. one of the tnbe in the first 
Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, in May 1826, and 
since published, furnishes highly interesting information. 

The territories of this nation, lying within the chartered 
limits of the states of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama f 
extend about two hundred miles in length from west to 
east and one hundred and twenty in breadth. The popu- 
lation, which has been for some years past on the increase, 
has been also, according to the authority above mentioned v 



190 SUltVEY OF CHBISTIANITt. 

making rapid strides in civilization. As the chase has 
become inadequate to their subsistence, they have been 
obliged to resort to agriculture and the breeding of cattle ; 
and the improvement thus commenced has been accelerated 
by the invention of letters to express the Cherokee words, 
the translation of tne New Testament into that language, 
and the organization of a regular government. The 
nation, we are told, is divided into eight districts, each 
having its established court of justice, where disputed cases 
are decided by a jury, with proper officers to execute their 
decisions. The legislative authority is vested in a general 
court composed of the national committee and council, the 
former consisting of thirteen members, th^ latter of thirty- 
two besides the speaker ; and the executive power is vested 
in two principal chiefs, who hold their office during good 
behaviour, and sanction the decisions of thr- legislative 
council. 

Polygamy is abolished and female honour protected by 
law. The sabbath is respected by the council during 
session. The mechanical arts are encouraged. The 
practice oT putting aged persons to death for witchcraft is 
abolished, and murder is now a crime against the State. 

Such is the picture drawn by a member oi the Cherokee 
nation ; " and," say the conductors of the North American 
Review, from whose pages these particulars are extracted, 
" we have no doubt of their truth," 

The missionary establishments for the education of In- 
dian youth ?n the United States, founded and supported by 
voluntary contributions, and aided by an annua] appro- 
priation from the national treasury, open encom aging 
prospects. Of these establishments there are forty -one in 
operation on the frontiers of the United States. We know 
not how many pupils they contain, but the expenditure, 
which\ in 18^4 was 191,000 dollars, in 1826 exceeded 
202,000. When it is considered that the value of their 
own agricultural products, and the labour of their teachers, 
artisans, and others, which is wholly gratuitous, constitute 
no part of this amount, some conception may be formed of 
the value of these eleemosynary foundations. The children 
of both sexes are here fed, clothed, and taught, and pre- 
pared by regular discipline for those duties, which subse 
quent events may probably call them to perform. 



XJTttTED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 1 9 I 

Another plan, proposed for meliorating the condition of 
the North American Indians, and preserving them from 
farther decline and eventual extinction, is the scheme for 
removing them to the country westward of the Mississippi-, 
and there establishing them in a permanent residence, 
This proposition was submitted by the President to Con- 
gress, two years ago, but the public opinion respecting its 
practicability and consequences is yet unsettled. 

The missions of the French, Spaniards, and Portuguese 
in America and other parts of the world, supported for 
centuries at an immense expense, can scarcely boast such 
rapid and permanent effects as these. The power of free- 
will piety and the pure love of what is good is always 
greater than that of constraint- and selfish secondary 
motives, which but too often discovered themselves in 
these missions. The force of moral convictions is more 
binding than that of compulsory habit. 

The Indian nations of North America are for the rest 
not less averse than others to exchange their mode of life 
and religion for those of Europeans. For liberty and in- 
dependence they cheerfully sacrifice life itself, and despise 
with savage pride the most excruciating torments. They 
regard the Europeans it is true as a more industrious and 
skilful, but at the same time a more unnatural and vicious 
race of people. They continue to be mistrustful of stran- 
gers, who have partly wrested from them the land of their 
forefathers, contracted their hunting-grounds, and brought 
such calamities upon them by the introduction of spirituous 
liquors. 

As a necessary consequence of the simplicity of their 
wants, their language is poor in words ; but their under- 
standing is nevertheless neither so limited nor so dark as 
Europeans were formerly led too precipitately to suppose. 
Their dialects, mostly deficient in terms for temporal wants, 
are not so meagre in expressions for what is not of this 
world. They distinguish very accurately between the soul, 
as being immortal, and the body. u VVe can die, but not 
cease to be," say they to the missionaries. " The grain of 
maize dies too, when it is put into the ground, but it is not 
dead for all that." From Loskiel's History of tne Missions 
of the United Brethren among the Delawa^res and Iroquois, 



SUKVEY OP CHRISTIANI'TV. 

we know that their priests frequently insist on a virtuous 
life as an essential condition for reaching the abode of the 
good spirits after the death of the body. They present 
offerings to the Manitous, good spirits, (tutelar angels) but 
to these only, and not to the Great Spirit (God), who de- 
sires no offerings and is too exalted for them. They be* 
lieve also the existence of an evil spirit, without propitia- 
ting him by offerings. To them dreams are divine revela- 
tions, as they were in the primitive ages of European and 
Asiatic society. 

The Catholics as well as the Protestants in North Ameri- 
ca have in our times shared in the glory of propagating 
Christianity and laboured in the cause with success. It is 
not only from the United States, but also from the French 
and Spanish missions in Louisiana and Mexico, that the 
light of the Gospel has been shed on the forests and wilds 
of the independent Indians. Thus, during the last fifty 
years the Catholic faith has been diffused among a great 
part of the Iroquois, Hurons, and Illinois, also among the 
Boluxas, who dwell below Natchicoches, and among the 
Adaizes, on the Mermentas, in whose country there is a 
permanent Spanish mission. 

There are also "several Spanish missions on the river 
Erana, in the north of New Spain, not far from the posts 
of San Antonio and San Saba, At each of them reside 
seven or eight families of converted Indians, mostly cap- 
tives taken by the Spaniards in war with the Savages, but 
who are severely oppressed and obliged to labour for the 
benefit of the missionaries. 

Of the French Father Rasle acquired among the Hu- 
rons and the Iroquois the reputation of an apostle by his 
zeal and piety. In the year 1724 he was put to death by 
the savages. The Jesuits at Quebec were particularly 
active : but the answer given in 1682 by the Iroquois am* 
bassador to the French governor, M. de la Barde, when, 
in the negotiation of a treaty of peace, the latter inquired 
why the Iroquois particularly insisted that no Jesuits should 
;orne among them, is remarkable. The honest Indian 
replied: " Those men in their wide black frocks would 
never think of coming to us if we had no women and n^ 
beavers." 



SPANISH NORTH AMERICA. 193 

The war of independence, -and the civil commotions in 
Spanish America, which continued without interruption 
For many years subsequently to IB 10, have greatly para- 
lyzed the activity of the missions. 



CHAPTER V. 

spirit of conversion in Spanish north America — thi 
californians — their religious notions. 

It is little more than three centuries since the discovery 
of the New World. Before three centuries more elapse 
the States of America will probably rival the most flourish- 
ing in the Old World : for there thrive religious ideas and 
institutions, for the magnitude and simplicity of which the 
latter seems to have no room left. 

It is but about a hundred years since the death of William 
Penn, the illustrious and pious Quaker, to whom Pennsyl- 
vania owes its name, culture, and civilization. With him 
commenced in North America, exclusively of the Spanish 
possessions, a proper feeling, a genuine zeal for the con- 
version and civilization of the Savages ; and now numerous 
tribes enjoy the blessings of both. We have every reason 
to believe that: in another hundred years the greater part 
of the North American tribes, who are still roving about in 
their forests without instruction, will have permanent 
abodes, towns, villages, agriculture, manufactures, and 
commerce. 

William Penn realized in his colonies the grand idea of 
complete religious liberty. His example operated on the 
surrounding provinces. To this idea the vast continent of 
the North American States owes its wonderfully rapid pros- 
perity and the easy propagation of Christianity. The 
latter has been effected, as in the early ages of our religion, 
without force of arms, without the edicts of governments. 
py the efforts of private individuals. 

In the Spanish possessions a total!y different spirit pre 
f7 



194 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

vailed. In these too now dwell numerous civilized Chris- 
tian Indians. They are the despised relics of the descend- 
ants of those who, on the destruction of the ancient Mexi- 
can monarchy, fell by the sword of the Spaniards, or fled 
into the forests. Their vanquished forefathers, dragged 
into slavery, adopted, under the terrors of Spanish cruelty, 
the faith and laws of eternal love. Thus they are still 
subordinate to the four archbishoprics of Mexico, Gauda- 
laxara, Durango, and St. Louis Potosi. It is easy to form 
some idea of Mexican Christianity, if we recollect with 
what severity the I nquisition has hitherto ruled there. The 
punishments of the Iloly Office have ever been regarded 
with reverence as well pleasing to the Deity, and so lately 
as the year 1770 De Page3, the circumnavigator, found in 
the Spanish catechism, under the head of " Works of Chris- 
tian Love," the abominable injunction that those who go 
astray must be punished and not conducted back into the 
right way. 

It is not surprising then that the neighbouring indepen- 
dent Indian tribes are adverse to the God and the manners 
of the Spaniards. The business of conversion proceeds 
slowly, though the court of Madrid formerly allotted three 
hundred thousand piastres a year for missions, but, indeed, 
the money was in general very irregularly paid. — The sa- 
cred work is carried on by monks, who repair to the wil- 
derness from a sense of duty or by command of their supe- 
riors ; not as is done in the rest of North America, by pious 
volunteers, from spontaneous enthusiasm or ardent fondness 
for the office. The former cannot go without being ac- 
companied and guarded by soldiers ; the latter have no 
other protection than God and their conscience. Had all 
the European Christians gone forth to the Indians in the 
same truly Christian spirit as Penn, the Quaker. I have no 
doubt that Christianity would have been at this day the re- 
ligion of most of the aboriginal Americans. Penn con- 
cluded an honourable treaty with his savage neighbours. 
This is the only treaty ever made between these people 
and the Christians without being sworn to ; and it is also 
the only one that has not been broken. The others wen 
negotiated in the true European style, sword in hand, so* 
lemnly sworn to, and wantonly violated. 



SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 19a 

If the numerous missions in North American New 
Spain, where among the Guyamas alone the Jesuits and 
after them the Franciscans and other orders had twenty- 
four missions, have produced like benefit, the chief 
obstacle consisted in the royal ordinance, directing that 
the Indians should be compelled for five years aftei their 
conversion to labour in agriculture and the mines. The 
term indeed was subsequently shortened, but only in the 
royal ordinance and not u\ reality. Hence the shyness of 
the Savages. They consider the dedication to Christianity 
as a dedication to slavery. The insurrection of the Indians 
in the province of Sonora, in the year 1751, was the 
result of this feeling, tt is conjectured that occasional 
commotions of this kind were not disagreeable to the 
American Spaniards ; since they afforded them pretext 
for keeping the captives more rigorously to their servile 
occupations. 

Besides the attempts at conversion hitherto made in 
the interior and partially on the frontiers of the viceroyalty 
of New Spain in North America, as in the missions of the 
provinces of Sonora, Cinaloa, Ostimuri, &,c. they have 
likewise been prosecuted in the extensive peninsula of 
California, but with fluctuating success. Of all the 
Spanish missionary institutions in North America those 
in California have hitherta been the most celebrated. 
But the missions were rendered subservient less to a 
sacred than to a political object, the subjugation of the 
country to the Spanish crown by means of Christianity — 
and this very circumstance must have operated as an im- 
pediment to the undertaking, even to the present day. 

After Hernando de Grixalva had, in 1534, discovered 
the peninsula, which is nearly as large as Italy, exclusively 
of its islands, the first thought of the Spaniards was to 
make themselves masters of the country. Its chain of 
bare mountains promised gold ; its southern coast yielded 
pearls. During a century and a half repeated expeditions 
were sent thither, but to no purpose. The savages, natu- 
rally intelligent and of a martial disposition, and rendered 
mistrustful by the first perfidies of the Spaniards, repelled 
the invaders with a superior force. At the conclusion of 
the seventeenth centwy, the Spanish court even relinr 
quashed in desnair. all idea of reducing California. 



196 SURVEY OF CMKISTIAKlTlf, 

Still, however, that idea was cherished in the bosom o| 
a few Jesuits, and it engaged more particularly the mind 
of Father Eusebius Francis Kiihn, (called Kino by the 
Spaniards,) a German, who, in order to tread in the steps 
of the apostles, resigned the professorship of astronomy 
in the high school at Ingolstadt, and undertook the dan- 
gerous office of a missionary in Spanish America.* As 
such he resided in the province of Sonora, the northern- 
most of the Spanish possessions, situated on the South 
Sea, or rather on the Gulf of California. Encouraged by 
him, Father Juan Maria de Salva-Tierra proceeded in 
1697 to California with some soldiers and Jesuits. The 
prudence with which this pious and resolute man con- 
ducted himself in the peninsula, whither Kiihn soon fok 
lowed him, decided the fate of that country. Kiihn who, 
by his overland journey from Sonora to California, first 
acquired a certainty that the latter was not an island, 
founded the mission of Loretto, on the Red Sea, as the 
gulf between America and California was now denomi- 
nated, and fortified the place according to the rules of 
military science* After a firm footing had been gained, 
Spain sent succours in anus, troops, Jesuits, implements, 
and conveniences of all kinds. One mission after another 
was established. The new comers won the confidence of 
the Savages by presents, and made themselves acquainted 
with their language and manners. Among the Jesuits 
themselves there appeared from time to time men of extra- 
ordinary fortitude, distinguished piety, and mild disposi- 
tion, who won the hearts of the natives. Of these J c nana 
Anton Balthasar, a native o* Lucerne, in Switzerland, 
became particularly eminent : he wa? at length appointed 
chief inspector of all the Spanish missions, and at his 
death in 1763 he was Superior of his order in the vice- 
royalty of Mexico. 

With the gradual increase of the missions, the Jesuits 
attended not only to the business of conversion, but also 
to the foundation of their politico-commercial empire in 
California. They took possession of the country, to be 
sure, as a Spanish domain, but they reserved for themselves 

£ #e died there in 1710, 



SPANISH NORTH AMERICA. 197 

die- most important part of the advantages accruing from 
it. With the consent of the court, the Order took upon 
itself the administration of civil and ecclesiastical affairs ; 
stationed soldiers, levied at its expense, in the forts which 
it had erected for the protection of the missionaries and 
converts, or for overawing the refractory ; appointed and 
removed the officers and commanders of the armed force, 
and likewise the civil officers and judges. The pearl- 
fishery remained the king's ; but the profits arising from 
agriculture and the commerce of the country belonged to 
the Order. 

The conversion of the natives meanwhile proceeded 
but slowly. The Savages were displeased that strangers, 
who came from a distant country to seek shelter in theirs, 
should also wish to deprive them of the religion of their 
ancestors. u If," cried an Indian priest to a Spaniard, 
u thy God hath given thee, as thou sayest, a finer country 
than this, far away beyond the sea, why art thou not 
content with it ? Return home !" — One of the mission- 
aries made the remark that u a wise Providence hath 
given to the savage nations mines of gold and to the 
civilized nations — the thirst of gold."* So lately as the 
year 1804, the natives, especially of New California, were 
attached to the independence of a nomadic life. Here, 
along the sea coast, reside several of their tribes ; first, 
the Tuiban and Tabin, and farther eastward the Tsholban 
and Tamlan. Fish, seals, muscles, and other marine pro- 
ductions, likewise herbs, roots, and the produce of the 
chase, are their food. They have no permanent abodes,, 
nor any garment in summer but a narrow stripe round the 
waist. In winter they wrap themselves in skins. Their 
external appearance is disagreeable ; they are rude and 
disgustingly filthy. The coarse hair of their heads stands 
erect, and is sometimes adorned with the tail-feathers of 
the loriot or the common kite. It is even yet not uncom* 
naon for the converted Californian, longing after his former 
home and independence, to abandon all the conveniences 
of life and run away. When this is the case, the fugitive 
is- immediately pursued ; and he rarely escapes, because.. 

♦ TJie above-mentioned Antcn Balthasar, in his yet unpUblishec 
iccount of the mission in the year 1707. 



19S suBt£t of crifcistiArtttl. 

owing to the hostilities prevailing between the dirterenl 
tribes, he cannot join any other than his own. Whefc 
retaken he is conducted back to the mission and severely 
beaten, and a thick iron bar half a yard long is fastened 
to one foot. This serves to prevent any further attempt 
at escape, and as a warning to his comrades. 

Among the Californians were found not the least vestige 
of idolatry, no prayers, no festivals, no altars. They, 
nevertheless, believe in an invisible God and Creator of al! 
things ; but a different mythology prevailed among dif- 
ferent tribes. The Eduoos or Monkees, in the southern 
part of the peninsula, related, for example, that Neparaya, 
u the Almighty," though invisible and incorporeal, had a 
virgin wife, named Anayicondl, and by her a son Quaay- 
ayp, "man;"— that the latter descended from heaven 
with many attendants and instructed the southern nations, 
but was at last crowned with a crown of thorns and put 
to death ; — that he still continues to bleed, is not subject 
to corruption, and though, being dead, he cannot speaks 
yet an owl speaks for him. 

It is no wonder that the amazed Jesuits should imagine 
that they discovered in these notions of the Californians 
Faint traces of Christian revelation. The tribes resident in 
the central part of the peninsula likewise tell of an invisi- 
ble almighty Gumongo, " king of spirits," who in ancient 
times sent another spirit, Guyiaguai, into the world to 
mankind. This messenger is said to have taught men to 
bow pitahayas. The pitahava is a fruit of the country, 
about the size of a chesnut, prickly without, soft and juicy 
within, which grows on the leafless branches of a tree, 
and is the most common food of the inhabitants. With 
these notions those of the northern Californians, especially 
the Koschimers, have a close affinity. " He \vho is alive • 
— they know of no other designation for the Supreme Be- 5 
ing — has a son, " completion of the earth." God createet 
also invisible' beings, who rebelled against him and are 
kicked. 

These traditions, at any rate, are remarkable from theif 
striking coincidence with many of the dogmas of ike 
Christian churches and of the Buddha religions of the 
Sotrtil of 4sia. The Jesuits found it a difficult, task to 



SPANISH NORlli AJtMicA. 19? 

combat them, partly because the jealousy of the Califor 
hian priests or sorcerers opposed the diffusion of Chris- 
tianity, partly because the language of the country lacked 
expressions for many Christian doctrines. When, there- 
fore the first missionaries wished to make the native com- 
prehend the position, u He is risen from the dead"— ^thejr 
plunged a fly into water till it appeared to be lifeless^ then 
laid it, strewed over with ashes, in the sun, where it pre- 
sently revived. The Indians manifested amazement, and 
cried " Ibimuhueiie ! Ibimuhueiie /" The Fathers imme- 
diately wrote down this word, and thenceforward employ- 
ed it to express the resurrection of the Messiah. From 
this single fact we may infer what confused notions of the 
Christian religion the Indians must have had* and under 
similar circumstances must still entertain. 

After the suppression of the Order of the Jesuits, the 
Californian missions, like all the others in Spanish North 
America, were transferred to the Franciscans and Domini- 
cans, who prosecuted the work commenced by their pre- 
decessors in the same spirit but with scarcely so much zeal 
and perseverarice. In the year 1820, there were in Old 
California^ or the southern half of the peninsula, besides 
some forts, fifteen missionary settlements along the coasts^ 
in which dwelt about two thousand converted Indians, who 
were dependent on the clergy and employed in agriculture. 
\n New California, the more fertile northern part of the 
peninsula, or rather in the tract of coast above the penin- 
sula, there are nineteen such missions, where reside about 
fourteen thousand converted Indians. Six small forts, with 
Spanish garrisons of a few hundred men, keep the people 
in subjection. " All these missions," says Langsdorf, in 
the Narrative of his Voyage round the World with Krusen- 
stern, in the years 1803 to 1807, u have a superabundance 
of cattle and other provisions of different kinds, and thfc 
monks treat the new converts in general with such indul- 
gence, kindness, and paternal care, that peace, harmony* 
and obedience are the necessary results of their conducts 
Disobedience is usually punished with corporal chastise- 
ment ; and the military in the forts, or presidios, are em 
ployed only on extraordinary occasions, such as the main 
tefiance of the past and as a protection agai&st attacks 



200* survey of Christianity; 

According to the assurance of persons entitled to credit*, 
the court of Spain is obliged to furnish one million piastres 
per annum for the pay of the troops and ecclesiastics* in 
both Californias — an expenditure from wnich it derives 
no advantage, but to which is attached the merit of propa- 
gating the Christian religion in those countries." 

Defective as^tlie religious notions of the new converts 
must at first be, still the efforts of the Jesuits and their 
successors are entitled to the grateful acknowledgments of 
the world. At any rate, the roving natives have been ac- 
customed by them to stationary abodes, to agricultural 
and pastoral occupations, and to useful arts; and even this 
has not been accomplished without incurring the severest 
sacrifices and manifold dangers. The way has thus been 
opened and one step taken towards the ennobling of our 
race. 

Here, however, as in most of the missions of the monas- 
tic orders, conversion was strictly speaking no more than 
the communication of new habits not new convictions. 
The messengers of salvation came attended by soldiers : 
if hostilities arise, the former act the parfbf mediators, 
that they may win the love of the Savages in the same 
proportion as the warriors excite their terror. They first 
strive to gain individuals, and afterwards more, by kind 
ness and by presents of knives, hatchets, mirrors, glass- 
beads, &c. They prevail upon them to erect huts in the 
vicinity of the mission, give them furniture and apparel, 
teach them agriculture, the preparation of tallow, cloth - 
weaving, sawing timber, smith's and carpenter's work, and 
all sorts of handicraft trades* They instruct them also in 
the Spanish or French language, teach them to make the 
sign of the cross, to kneel, pray, and tell their beads ; and 
administer baptism and give them Christian names as soon 
as they conceive that they have duly impressed on the 
memory of the Savages the doctrines of the Trinity, the 
death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, hell and pur- 
gatory, the power of the Virgin Mary, the efficacy of 
prayer, &c. 

* In California the yearly salary <*f a missionary was five himcke^ 
piastres 



SPANISH K0&TH AMERICA* 201 

The Californians, though rude, are yet cunning and 
mercenary enough to take all this in good part. They 
come by hundreds, especially when there is a dearth of 
provisions, affect great docility, submit to be baptized, and 
afterwards run away in crowds, and this the good mission- 
aries generally ascribe to the manoeuvres of Satan, if 
the friars run short of presents, or are not in the humour 
to make presents, or if the Savages cannot resist the desire 
to possess every thing, sudden attacks, murder, and war 
are the consequences. Hence forts and garrisons are indis- 
pensably requisite for Catholic missions ; hence the main- 
tenance of such missions is always expensive; and hence 
it is necessary to establish an ecclesiastical administration, 
to which the civil and military authorities are subordinate* 
It was not thus, however, that the Gospel was pro- 
claimed by the first disciples of Jesus, or by their first dis- 
ciples and successors in the early ages of Christianity. 
With God in their hearts, they went forth boldly and singly, 
and preached and convinced and baptized, without aiming 
at any advantage for themselves or the superior authorities, 
In the Portuguese and Spanish missions, as soon as the 
Savages have been somewhat tamed and habituated to 
agricultural and other occupations, the priests fix the 
i amount of taxes which the converted Indians must pay to 
them and to ihe sovereign : nay. the Christian Indians are 
doomed, in obedience to their new religion, to labour for 
a certain period in the royal mines! In truth, it was the 
kingdom of monarchs and priests alone that they long 
strove to extend, and afterwards the kingdom of God ; but 
the latter only as a mean or pretext for the former, 



202 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER VI. 

TIIE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS IN SOUTK 

A31ERICA i^MPliiE OP THE JESUITS ON THE UKAGUAl 

SIOW PROtfUESS OF* CHRISTIANITY OF L.ATE YEARS. 

The general observations witfr which the last chapter 
concludes may be applied to the greater part of ihe mis- 
sions in South America. Every one is acquainted with 
the spirit manifested by the Spanish and Portuguese 
governments in their Europeau dominions ; the antipathy 
of their courts to the improvements introduced by art and 
science in other countries ; their fear of more enlightened 
views ; their partiaiuy to the nobles ; their neglect of the 
peopie and of popular instruction ; tiie power of the priest- 
hood in numberless churches and con vents, armed with the 
terrors of the inquisition , the persecution of every friend 
of truth and illumination. Hence it is easy to infer what 
must have been the administpation of the American colo- 
nies, which were treated only as gold- mines foi the court, 
for the noble families who were to be provided with places, 
and for the priests and friars ( 

Hence it was that, after the labour of centuries, the 
Christian religion gained but little ground among the Indian 
tribes, throughout the whoie extent of the iate Spanish 
dominions, from the isthmus of Panama to Terra del 
Fuego. It was a considerable time indeed before the 
conquerors of the New World could be induced to regard 
the Indians as human beings. What difficulty did the 
philanthropic Las Casas find to demonstrate this ! and 
what scorn and hatred did this pious bishop of Chiapa 
incur for his pains! Was not Pope Paul Hi. obliged, 
in his bull of the 2d of June, 1537, to declare solemnly 
that the Americans were really men, and consequently 
capable of the Catholic faith and sacraments ? — veros 
homines, fidei catholicce et sacramentorum capaces. 

In the three late Spanish viceroyalties of New Granada, 
teru, and La Plata, and in the captain-generalships of 



-SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA, 203 

^araccas, (Venezuela,) and Chile, there were certainly 
many Indians, living as Christians in towns, mines, or vil- 
lages of their own ; but by far the greater part of them 
were relics of the conquered natives, descendants of the 
first captives, mestizos of all sorts, sprung from intermar- 
riages between Europeans, Indians, Negroes, and their 
children.* They were mostly rude, poor, ignorant, and 
devoted to servitude. Such of the Indians as were not 
kept in the towns it was customary to banish to particular 
places which they durst not leavewithout permission. One 
of their Caciques was generally appointed to superintend 
them. Land was allotted to them for raising provisions. 
They were employed in public works, the mines, &c, 
The law, it is true, assigned them pay, but through the 
rapacity of their overseers they rarely received the whole 
and often nothing at all. They had, moreover, to pay 
taxes, one-fourth of which was allotted to the Cacique 
that he might collect them with the greater rigour. 

Such nearly was the lot of all these Indians of the inde- 
pendent tribes, who were converted to Christianity by 
missionary monks and priests. Is it then surprising that 
the proud and free children of Nature should shrink with 
horror from such effects of the religion of Christ ? 

There were it is true free Indians also who professed 
the Christian faith. These were such as, though inde* 
pendent, yet in daily intercourse with the Spaniards had 
adopted words of their language, ceremonies of their 
ritual, and more or less of their manners. But these, 
though they are baptized, carry rosaries and amulets, and 
make the sign of the cross, scarcely deserve the appellation 
of Christians. They retain their ancient heathen notions 
unimpaired ; and the Peruvian, w ? ith his Christian baptis- 
mal name, still worships the sun, as in the days of Pizarro. 

* The Spaniards reckon eleven gradations of the mixed blood, namely : 
Mestizos, children of a European and an Indian woman ; Quarterones, 
children of a European and a Mestiza ; Ochavones, children of a Euro- 
pean and a Quarterona; Pulchueles, children of a European and an Ocba- 
vona ; children of an Indian and a Pulchuela are like the Spaniards ; 
Mulatos, children of a European and a Negro woman ; Quarterones, 
children of a European and a Mulatto woman ; Saltatrds, children of a 
Quart^ron and a European woman ; Calpan mulatos, children of a Mu- 
latto and an Indian woman ; Chinos, children of a Calpan mulatto and 
-an Indian woman ; Z&riibos or Zambajos, all the children of Blacks and 
Indian women. 



£04 SURVEY OF CHKISTIANITY. 

The Spanish missioneros form in general the lowest 
order of the clergy. There have never been wanting men 
who, from inward piety, or from the duty of obedience, 
or because they were glad to escape monastic restraint, 
have cheerfully undertaken the functions of missionaries. 
Most of them, however, were extremely ignorant and su- 
perstitious ; unacquainted with the world and the human 
heart ; regarding empty ceremonies as religion, and having 
all their ideas infected with monastic prejudices. Even 
the better educated Jesuits, who came from Europe, 
could not wholly divest themselves of these prejudices. 
Hence they considered all that they heard of the religious 
systems of the Indians as the work of the devil, and repre- 
sented it in the false light in which they themselves beheld 
it. The national god of the Abipones, Keebet, the 
invisible, the terrible, was taken for the real devil by the 
learned Father DobrizhofTer himself; and because the 
Abipones or Mepones, who rove about on horseback in 
the immense pampas or plains, between the Rio Grande 
Yermejo, the Rio Salado, and La Plata, call their god 
Groaperikie, " ancestor," the Jesuit made no scruple to 
assert that the Abipones looked upon Satan as their 
grandfather. 

The Savages, by means of their sound understanding, 
frequently judged much more accurately of the Europeans 
than the Europeans of the Savages. They saw them 
steeped in vices from which the child of Nature recoils with 
horrxnyand could not reconcile the pious precepts of the 
missioneros with this prodigious depravity of manners. 
" Wherefore comest thou to us, father ?" said an Abipone 
one day to DobrizhofTer : " why dost thou not first make 
Christians of thy Spanish brethren?" — " Thou forbiddest 
us to have more than one wife," said Ychoalay, the 
cacique, to Father Brigniel — " are not the Spaniards 
Christians ? — and yet they are not content with one wife. 
They do much worse than we. They shamelessly attack 
any woman they meet, when their desires are excited. 
The Christians, thou tellest us, ought not to steal. Very 
true : a man ought not, though no Christian. Why then 
do thy Spaniards come and steal our hordes, nay, eveH 
our young boys and girls, and drag them away iittfc 
slavery?" 






SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 205 



With the prevalence of such sentiments among the 
Savages of South America, and with the recollection of 
the horrible cruelties perpetrated by the Spaniards in the 
conquest of the country — cruelties which are transmitted 
in traditions and songs from race to race — the very name 
of Christian has become and continues to be a term of 
execration among numberless independent tribes of that 
continent ; and hatred, fear, and abhorrence of it are 
perpetuated from generation to generation. 

The Jesuits, by their courage, prudence, and perse- 
verance, were more successful than any of the other 
Orders in making conquests in the territories of the free 
Indians for the Catholic faith. These conquests, however, 
as it is well known, ultimately proved to be no real gain 
either for humanity, or for Christianity, or for the crown of 
Spain. In our survey of California we have seen the 
manner in which this Order treated the savages and ex- 
ercised the calling of missionaries there : we meet with 
the same system in South America ; but there, and par- 
ticularly in the provinces of Paraguay, it was prosecuted 
with much more signal success. 

So far back as the sixteenth century, the Order sent 
many of its members to the southern as well as to the 
northern half of the New World, to preach the kingdom 
of God. These undaunted men, ever disposed to im- 
portant enterprises, from motives of religion or ambition, 
dispersed themselves among the Indians. Though many 
of them were put to death by the Savages, out of hatred 
to the Spaniards and Portuguese, yet more followed, un- 
armed, with merely the gentle words of peace and love 
upon their lips. Thus did they gradually inspire the 
ferocious Indians with confidence, and gain their good 
will by presents. The Jesuit could at last traverse the 
wilderness unmolested, and control by words and gestures 
hordes which the Portuguese and Spanish soldier durst not 
encounter. 

In order, however, to confer on the Savages the benefit 
of more sublime ideas, it was requisite to bind them in 
some measure to permanent abodes, and to communicate 
to them, with the arts of agriculture and social life, at 
least the civilization of semi-barbarians. The Jesuits 

18 



206 survey or Christianity. 

settled among them; they prevailed on individuals to 
reside near them, instructed the children, and by gifts 
ingratiated themselves with the adults. Thus Indian 
villages sprang up amid deserts, and churches by the side 
of huts. The missionaries then began to talk of sacred 
things, to impart instruction in Christianity, and to admin- 
ister baptism. Such was the origin of most of the 
missions in New Granada, La Plata, Peru, Venezuela, and 
the other provinces. Many excellent men of the Society 
of Jesus might here be mentioned, who, impelled by pure 
philanthropy, first opened the way into those wilds for 
Christianity and humanity. How important were the 
services of Father Deere, the apostle of the Yameos, Itu- 
balees, and Inquiavats, alone, who made Cuenza in 
Quito the central point of a widely operating mission, 
over which he was still presiding with credit in the year 
1727; who translated books of Christian instruction for 
the Savages in eighteen of their dialects ; and sent forth 
the new converts, whom, with truly Christian affection he 
protected from oppression, to be apostles of Jesus among 
their countrymen ! 

Between the rivers Paraguay and Uraguay, along the 
banks of the Parana and Bermejo, the disciples of Loyola 
selected the widest theatre of their operations. More 
numerous and more successful here than in any other 
quarter, they extended their settlements among the Guara- 
nees, Charruas, Chiquitos, and other savage tribes of 
Rio de la Plata, Paraguay, Tucuman, and Tarja. Inva- 
riable humanity, kindness, and prudence achieved more 
than arms could have accomplished. European culture 
soon embellished the environs of the missions ; the 
wretched huts and chapels constructed of poles and 
boughs of trees gave place to walled houses, at first built 
of Garth and afterwards of stone. The villages assumed, 
from the breadth and regularity of their streets, the ap- 
pearance of towns. The churches in each village, lofty 
handsome structures, with steeples'containing four or five 
bells, were provided with organs, and adorned with, richly 
gilt high-altars, silver utensils, and many images. A 
pompous service made a powerful impression on the 
senses of the astonished Savages. They were taught to 






SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 207 

sing and to play on all sorts of musical instruments ; they 
were instructed also in masons' and carpenters' work, 
watch-making, and other useful arts. The business of the 
day, from the first hour to the last, was allotted among the 
inhabitants of each place and performed with as much 
accuracy as in a convent. The Jesuits contemplated 
their creation with pride and pleasure. Such was its 
state so early as the middle of the seventeenth century ; 
and we have an account of it in the Travels, in 1692, of 
Father Anton ^epp, who was called thither from the 
Tirol to undertake the cure of souls in the tribe of the 
Japeyoos. 

The Jesuits now established here such a form of govern- 
ment as might be expected of monks, and as they would 
fain give at this day to the whole world, if the times were 
not mo r e powerful than they. The character of the tribes 
on the Paraguay and Uraguay favoured their plan. The 
Guaranees and other Indians of these parts were previously 
more or less disposed to a theocracy by the religion of the 
sun which prevailed under the Incas ; and their manners 
were comparatively mild. By auricular confession the 
theocracy was rendered more complete than it .could be 
in the time of the Incas. The priest was made acquainted 
with the most secret thoughts of the members of his flock. 
The Indians, without any notion of private property, ac- 
customed to a community of goods, suffered without hesi- 
tation all the land and the produce of labour to be divided 
in f o three parts : x>ne tor the Church, or, as Father Char- 
levoix calls it, tw the property of God ;" one for the public - 
use ; and the third for individuals. " Everything." says 
Raynal, u that was admired in the legislation of the Incas 
was revived, but in a more perfect form, m the ecclesias- 
tical state of Paraguay ; labour for the aged, orphans and 
soldiers ; reward of good actions ; superintendence over 
morals and military exercises; ordinances against indo- 
lence ; reverence for religion, virtue, and the servants of 
God. 

Money was here unknown, and yet more conveniences, 
nay, even more luxury, were to be found in the missions 
of the Jesuits than at Cusco and Lima, the capitals of 
Penj. Watch-maker^ cabinet-makers, goldsmiths, lock- 



208 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

smiths, tailors, &c. deposited their goods in the public 
warehouses of the priests, and were supplied with other 
necessaries in their stead. For them the husbandman had 
sown, for them the weaver made his cloth. They all 
formed one great family with an undivided property ; and 
ail paid obedience with a child-like spirit. The Jesuits 
were the fathers of the family, the teachers, the merchants, 
the military commajiders, the rulers. Each Jesuit, in his 
parish, was the ecclesiastical and temporal superior, inde- 
pendent of the rest, subordinate to the Provincial alone, 
and the latter to the General of the Order. 

At first precautions were very properly taken to exclude 
Spaniards from these colonies, that their dissolute way of 
life might not scandalize the new converts, or prevent 
other Indian tribes from embracing Christianity. The 
same pretext was subsequently made the means of con- 
cealing the arrangements of the state founded by the Je- 
suits from the courts of Spain and Portugal. By-engag- 
ing to pay into the exchequer a yearly poll-tax for con- 
verted Indians, they obtained a royal edict prohibiting 
Spaniards from entering the district of the missions with-> 
out leave of the Jesuits. For this purpose they had posts 
and kept strict watch on the frontiers. No stranger was 
admitted. ' The governors and bishops, when they held 
visitations, which were of very rare occurrence, were so 
overwhelmed with demonstrations of respect, entertain- 
ments, and presents, that they could do no other than make 
the most favourable reports. Two visitation books were 
moreover kept, one for the bishops,, the other for the Pro- 
vincials. 

To seal up this Jesuit empire more hermetically, the 
Spanish language was prohibited in the colonies and the 
Guaranee alone spoken. Of the Spanish Jesuits well- 
tried members only were admitted into the country; French 
and German were preferred. On the separation of Por- 
tugal from Spain, in 1640, the Jesuits took advantage of 
this event, to apply to the court of Madrid for fire-arms to 
defend themselves against the Portuguese, who retained 
possession of Brazil. They modelled their military sys- 
tem after that of Europe ; formed regiments and compa 
nies, infantry and cavalry. They built forts, called doctri r 



SPANISH SOUTH AMERICA. 209 

nas, where one or two Jesuits held arbitrary command. 
They assigned to each fort a certain tract of land, for the 
subsistence of the garrison. The court of Spain furnished 
neither money, clothing, nor arms. 

Thus did the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, upon pre- 
text of spreading the kingdom of heaven, secure for them- 
selves a flourishing earthly kingdom; and they endeavoured 
with equal courage and prudence to strengthen and extend 
it. It was not without danger and even the death of many 
of their members, several of whom DobrizhofFer mentions 
as martyrs, that they erected this New State. In 1729 it 
comprised thirty settlements or reductions, as they 
termed them, fifteen of which containing 62,263 souls, 
were situated on the river Parana, and fifteen, with 69,405 
inhabitants, on the Uraguay. There were, besides, seve- 
ral missions on the rivers Paraguay and Bermejo not 
included in this enumeration. 

It cannot be denied that, if animal well-being is the 
supreme good of mankind, the whole was cleverly plan- 
ned and judiciously executed. But the subject of the 
Jesuits wars merely a trained human brute — nothing more. 
Every higher thought, every indication of independence of 
mind, were carefully suppressed as incitements to sin. 
The Indians were enlightened only just so much as was 
advantageous to their priestly rulers, who took good care 
to keep aloof from them all notions which could cause 
them to overstep the circle that was marked out for them. 
Implicit obedience was a fundamental duty with the In- 
dians, as in the Order. Whoever had committed a fault 
went to the priest, solicited deserved punishment at his feet, 
and gratefully kissed the hand which had chastised him, 
Here was found, through habit, superstition, piety, igno- 
rance, and civil institutions, a moral slavery such as the 
world never beheld elsewhere, but in convents. The land 
of the Jesuit missions might in fact be considered as a sin- 
gle convent, and each of the reductions as a cell peopled 
with men whose childish ignorance yielded to every impres- 
sion; whose savage character was softened on the one hand 
by the terrors of superstition, the pomp of the new wor- 
ship, the power of habit, the omniscience of the priests, 
heightened by confession, and on the other hand by free- 



£10 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 

dom from care and the enjoyment of so many conve- 
niences of life. The priest in the reduction was the 
chief governor, the interpreter of God, the instructor, the 
steward, the military commander, the physician, the judge, 
the legislator, and the adviser of all. He directed the 
affairs of families as he pleased. It wa^ even so arranged 
that the female selected herself a husband, not the man a 
bride. Thus, if an Indian girl was desirous to marry, she 
repaired to the Father of the reduction and acquainted him 
with her inclination ; and, if he approved it, he sent for 
the man of her choice, and informed him of his lot, which 
he seldom refused. Father Sepp himself, in his account 
of the country, expresses his surprise at this extraordinary 
custom, through which maidens and wives were attached 
by the tenderest secrets of their hearts to the venerable 
Fathers of the Order. 

Thus there prevailed, it is true, in this republic, a tran- 
quillity, a harmony, an obedience, and an order, not to be 
found in any other state in the world. Charlevoix, in his 
time— the first half of the eighteenth century — might 
justly boast, that " here were no complaints, no law-suits — 
nay, that the meum and tuum were wholly unknown." — 
There was nothing but praying and labour, silent obe- 
dience and mental poverty. 

The existence of this empire of the Jesuits was long 
kept secret from the courts of Spain and Portugal. The 
viceroy, Martino de Barrua, indeed transmitted to his 
court, in 1730, alarming accounts respecting it. Indivi- 
dual authors had treated of it without reserve ; but the 
confessors at Lisbon and Madrid had no difficulty to pacify 
the apprehensions of the sovereigns ; Jesuit writers repre- 
sented the statements of the babblers as the calumnies of 
envy ; nay, they induced Muratori himself, though a 
stranger to them, to become their panegyrist, by furnishing 
him, through Father Cataneo, with the materials for his 
celebrated work : and by the persecutions which they 
drew upon Ferdinand de Cardena, bishop of Paraguay*, 
when, towards the conclusion of the seventeenth century, 
he set about stricter inquiries concerning the Christian 
congregations on the Parana and Uraguay, they deterred 
others from following his example. . 

A tteatv, concluded in J7ftO. between the courts of 



SPANISH SOUTH A1KERI€A. 211 

Lisbon and Madrid, respecting the boundaries of their 
colonies in South America, accidentally revealed the 
secret and frustrated all the schemes of the Loyolites. In 
drawing right lines the negotiators did not spare the 
country of the missions, but parted it in such a manner 
that many of the reductions fell to the share of Brazil. 
In vain did the venerable Fathers in Europe strive to 
prevent the execution of the treaty. The commissioners 
appointed by both powers made their appearance (in 
1752). The country of the missionaries was in arms 
against them. Troops were sent to reduce the Indians, 
but met with so obstinate a resistance that they could 
effect nothing. The Jesuits protested that this was not 
their fault, that they were unable to appease the fury of 
the Indians. It was however appeased, when the Spanish 
and Portuguese commanders, having received reinforce- 
ments, marched with their united armies against the 
reductions, and in February, 1756, defeated the Indians 
in a pitched battle, in which the latter lost twelve hundred 
men, and many pieces of cannon and colours. The 
boundaries were adjusted : soon afterwards the Order was 
suppressed ; the Jesuits in Paraguay disappeared, and not 
an Indian again drew a sword in their behalf. 

When the Jesuits quitted their missions, in 1757, they 
had, according to the accurate statement of DobrizhorTer, 
thirteen on the Parana and nineteen on the Uraguay* 
The former were inhabited in the year 1732 by 57,649 
persons, the latter by 83,533 ; but at the departure of the 
Jesuits the total population scarcely amounted to one 
hundred thousand. War, the small-pox, and other diseases, 
had swept away great numbers of people. In the ten 
colonies among the Chiquitos, on the right bank of the 
La Plata, towards the frontiers of Peru, there were (in 
1766) 23,788 converted Indians, and in the colonies 
among the Chakos, on the Hio Bermejo, there were at 
the same time 5424 Christians, or at least baptized 
persons. 

After the suppression of the Order of Loyola, little 
worth recording was heard from the Spanish and Portu- 
guese missions in South America ; but frequent complaints 
' were made against the missionaries of the Order of Do 



212 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rninicans or Capuchins, that they carried on a considerable 
contraband trade on the frontiers, and that they found 
means to compel the Indians to cultivate their lands 
without lawful compensation, or to purchase of them 
amulets, rosaries, crucifixes, and other religious wares, 
at exorbitant prices. " 

Thus the immense steppes, plains, or pampas, and the 
Highlands in the interior of South America, southward 
as far as Terra del Fuego, the land of the good-natured 
Pesherays, are still abandoned to heathenism. The in- 
surrection of the colonies against the Spanish sceptre, 
and the sanguinary war of independence, which has raged 
from the river La Plata to Darien, have almost entirely de- 
stroyed the missions. The ancient missions at St. 
Michael and Santa Teresa de Mayhures, on the Oronoko, 
those on the river Patumayu and the mighty Maranham, 
and many along the La Plata and the Uraguay, lie ne- 
glected, and others have been burnt. The Abipones, 
the cruel Tobas, the independent inhabitants of the moun- 
tains and forests of Peru, and the yet unsubdued tribes, by 
whatever names they may be called, who cherish an he- 
reditary abhorrence of the Spanish and Christian name, 
rejoiced at these convulsions, which served to secure their 
freedom ; and many of the converted tribes again became 
Savages, with the warring Europeans, whom they alter- 
nately assisted and harassed. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SURVEY OF BRASIL AND GUIANA. 

John VI. the late King of Portugal, who in 1807 made 
Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brasil, his residence^ excited by 
his presence great hopes of improvement in the countries 
of South America subject to his sceptre. It is well known 
bow peremptorily he decided against the introduction of 
the Inquisition ; how he promised the gradual abolition of 



BRASIL— GUIANA. 2 1 3 

he ave-trade in his dominions, and opposed the restora- 
ion of the Order of the Jesuits. It is well known with 
what liberality he favoured (since 18 1^ European emi- 
grants and settlers, for the purpose of strengthening and 
promoting the prosperity of his American dominions. 
The latter, however, under the government o f his eldest, 
son, Pedro, who assumed the title of Emperor of Brasil, 
advances but slowly. The multitude prefers indepen- 
dence in North America, where every sect builds itself a 
church unmolested, while in Brasil the Catholic com- 
munion is the only one in which it is possible to gain salva- 
tion. Protestants are tolerated, it is true, if they but 
abstain from a public profession of their religious tenets. 
Toleration, however, is but a small and precarious boon> 
depending on the will and life of a single individual. 

The diffusion of the Romish faith among the aboriginal 
inhabitants is still prosecuted, as of old, rather as an 
, official duty than from inward impulse. The missions of 
the Jesuits on the Toncantines and Rio Doca, on the 
Maranham and the Rio Negro, as far as the frontiers of 
Peru, still subsist. They are supplied by other friars. 
Their success is not brilliant. By far the greater part of 
the Indians dwelling among the Europeans, nay, many of 
the numerous Negroes, know nothing of Christianity. 
They live peaceably in the worship of the deities of 
their ancestors. It is more curious than unaccountable 
that Portuguese and Spaniards should rather tolerate 
heathen among them than Protestant Christians, or wor- 
shippers of the true God according to the Mosaic law. 

The neighbouring country of Guiana has been in later 
times more neglected, if possible, than Brasil, in regard to 
the civilization of its inhabitants. The French and Dutch 
settlers along the coast were content to overawe with arms 
the martial tribes of the original inhabitants, or to conciliate 
them by annual presents, that they might raise in security 
their sugar, coffee, indigo roucou, cotton, and spices. For- 
merly more pains were taken, especially in the French pos- 
sessions, to enlighten the Indians by the preaching of the 
Gospel. But the seed sown by the first missionaries after- 
> wards degenerated, or ran wild, or wholly perished. The 
Caribbees still retain a tradition founded on the Christian 



214 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

doctrine that the Supreme Being sent his son from Heaven 
to kill a prodigious serpent ; after the conquest of the 
monster there issued from its bowels worms, eich of 
which generated a male and female Carib. What absurd 
notions must the Christian missionaries have frequently 
implanted with their dogmas in the minds of their convert- 
ed Savages ! 

Their own ideas of divine things are often far more 
rational than the misconceived doctrines which they have 
derived from Christian priests. "The Indians of these 
countries," says the anonymous author of Travels in 
Guiana and Cayenne, " silly and childish as their other 
notions may be, nevertheless believe that the Supreme 
Being, who beslows on them all they need, is too exalted 
to. accept presents and offerings from men, and too 
bountiful to require prayers and solicitations/' They are 
no strangers to the immortality of the sou! : but we are 
acquainted, and that most imperfectly, with the religious 
ideas of very few of the tribes contiguous to the Euro- 
peans ; the Indians beyond the mountains are mostly 
unknown to us even by name. 

Since the Revolution, the functions and occupations of 
the missionaries have almost ceased in the French settle- 
ments. They had previously been performed by Jesuits, 
and subsequently by other monastic Orders. In Dutch 
Guiana infinitely less had been done from the first for the 
diffusion of Christianity. The indolent, voluptuous, and 
tyrannical planters cared but little for the propagation of a 
faith, which had struck such scanty root in their own 
minds. Stedman's account of Surinam exposed the 
hideous atrocity of those scarcely human colonists, slave- 
drivers, and traders. They would not do the least even for 
their own Negroes, whom they treated as brutes ; and the 
few Protestant ministers at Paramaribo, Berbice, and 
Essequebo, were too dependent and under too much 
restraint to perform more than the most urgent of their 
pastoral duties demanded. The United Brethren alone 
have exerted themselves here with zeal since the year 
1730. They first formed a small congregation at Para- 
maribo, where they supported themselves by the labour of 
their hands ; then founded, with some baptized Indians, 
the mission of Sharon, on the Sarameka, in 1757, likewise 



GUIANA. 215 

that of Hope, on the river Corentyn in 1735, and others 
near the sources of the Sarameka, at Quama, among the 
Free Negroesi in 1 765, and at Berbice. Their labours 
here, however, seem not to have been productive of im- 
portant results. 

Since the English made themselves masters, in 1804, 
of the principal Dutch and French settlements in Guiana, 
greater attention has been paid to these parts by the British 
missionaries. Two new missions have been established, 
since 1807, at Sommelsdyk and Demerara, and provided 
with printed Bibles. The Jews of Surinam alone pur- 
chased a considerable number, because in their syna- 
gogues they use the Dutch translation of the Old Tes- 
tament. 

In the year 1823 the mission of the London Missionary 
Society in Demerara became a subject of painful interest 
to the whole British nation, in consequence of an insur- 
rection among the slaves belonging to the plantation 
called Resouvenir, where Mr. Smith, the missionary, 
resided. The causes and the consequences of that com- 
motion are too well known to every reader to need repe- 
tition here : suffice it to state, that Smith was charged 
with having instigated the Blacks to violence, tried by 
martial law, and sentenced to death. The royal remission 
of that sentence, the extreme injustice of which it is im- 
possible for any unprejudiced mind to doubt, arrived after 
disease and imprisonment had put a period to the bodily 
sufferings of the unfortunate missionary. The cloud thus 
thrown upon the prospects of religious usefulness in this 
quarter has not yet passed off, and the directors of the 
Society have since resolved to abandon the station — 
though it appears that they have been induced by subse- 
quent information to defer carrying that resolution into 
effect. 



£ 16 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS NEGRO SLAVES — THE EMPIRE 

OF THE BLACKS IN HAYTI — ACTIVITY OF THE PRO- 
TESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE BRITISH AND DANISH 
ISLANDS. 

The extensive archipelagoes of islands which lie scat- 
t ered between the two great continents of America, and 
are known by the names of the Antilles and Bahamas, were 
first discovered by the Europeans, first conquered, first 
fertilized with the blood of their inhabitants, and then re- 
peopled with greedy planters and African Negro Slaves. 
It was only in St. Vincent, Tobago, Martinique, and Do- 
minica, that a few wretched relics of the aboriginal in- 
habitants, the Caribbees, maintained themselves. 

In their towns and villages the cruel conquerors built 
numerous churches, chapels, and convents for monks and 
nuns. They rejoiced to be able to plant the cross in the 
New World : but the religion of Him who suffered on it 
was not propagated with the cross. The baptized were 
more ferocious than the unbaptized who had been massa- 
cred, or than the wretched Negroes who were treated like 
brutes. 

For a long time it was considered as not worth while 
to impart Christian instruction to the Blacks employed in 
the cultivation of the islands. If they understood the 
language of the scourge, it was thought quite sufficient. 
There were moreover great impediments to their con- 
version, as on the one hand their labour left them too 
little leisure, and on the other they frequently changed 
their master and residence, or pined in misery. It was 
found necessary to drag away one hundred thousand 
Negroes annually from Africa, to supply the places of 
those who had perished. 

It was not till the commencement of the eighteenth 
oentury that the Europeans began to think seriously of 
the conversion of the Blacks* at least of such of them as 



WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 217 

had acquired their freedom. Here too, and especially in 
the French islands, the Jesuits were most assiduous in 
their efforts. The Spanish colonies manifested less zeal 
for the civilization of their slaves. Political writers, nay 
even divines, went so far as to dissuade from such 
attempts ; some, probably from the same reason whicli at 
the present day causes the timid jealousy of European 
viziers, the pride of caste, and monastic intrigue, to 
oppose the humanizing of mankind : that the diffusion of 
knowledge might be dangerous to the public welfare and 
tranquillity — others, because the Black, though a man, is 
of inferior race and not capable of attaining such a degree 
of moral elevation as the European. 

In the Spanish settlements in the West Indies most of 
the Negroes have in fact continued to be worshippers of 
fetishes : and the converts have no other Christian duty but 
to attend mass a few times in the course of the year. Who- 
ever neglects this point is punished with fine or flogging. 

In the French VVest India islands a better spirit pre 
vailed, at least in this particular. The activity of the 
Jesuits, Capuchins, and other orders of monks, was en- 
couraged and seconded. The mission founded in 1704, 
by the Jesuits in St. Domingo, numbered in the year 
1745 nineteen parishes; and at present, in the inde- 
pendent Negro state of Hayti, comprehending nearly a 
million of souls, there is not a village without its church. 
The fifty-four parishes of this republic were divided into 
the episcopal sees of Port au Prince, Leogane, Cape 
Henry, and Sans Souci. The archbishop of the island 
resides at Port au Prince. There is not a village but has 
its elementary schools, not a town without institutions 
for the promotion of the arts and sciences. More civili- 
zation, more industry, more love for art and science, 
prevail at this day in this West Indian Negro State than 
were ever found there since the conquest of the island 
!t is also worthy of remark that the British Bible Societies 
have extended their beneficent influence to'Hayti. 

In the British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch West India 
islands also, the Christian instruction of the Negroes was 
not seriously commenced till after the beginning of the 
last century. In Jamaica appeared the Moravian Brethren 

19 



218 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

in 1754, the We9leyan Methodists (in 1781), and the Bap- 
tists, and founded numerous missions.. Of more than 
three hundred thousand black inhabitants of the island, 
a sixth part were converted in the space of thirty years to 
Christianity. The most enlightened or the most pious of 
the free Negroes are selected for preachers, and a hundred 
of them are assiduously engaged in propagating the divine 
word. The United Brethren are not less successful in 
their operations at Basse Terre, in St. Kitts (since 1774); 
at Sharon, in Barbadoes, (since 1765) where Sir Christo- 
pher Codrington, the governor, in the middle of last cen- 
tury allotted lands to the value of thirty thousand pounds 
for the endowment of a college for training missionaries 
and at St. John's Grace-hill, Grace Bay, Cedar Hall, and 
New Field, in Antigua. 

Next to the Moravians, the Wesleyan Methodists have 
been most active in the West Indies, especially in the Bri- 
tish islands. They have had (since 1788) their stationary 
missions in the Bahama islands and at Trinidad, in the 
latter island along with the Catholic priests, who still con- 
tinue, as they did at the time of the Spanish sovereignty, 
to reside, by the name of missionaries, in the eight villages 
of the native Indians. They have also supplied the island 
of Grenada (since 1788) with preachers; likewise St. 
V r incent, the Swedish island of St. Bartholomew (since 
1 788;, the mountainous Dominica, Antigua, &c.' The 
latter island contains their most flourishing mission, to 
which belonged, in 1826, above 3500 souls. 

In the Danish islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. 
Juan, the Moravians set about the conversion of the Ne- 
groes so early as the year 1732. Till then nothing of 
the kind had been attempted. Leonhard Dober, a Ger- 
man, was the first person who left Herrnhut, and proceed- 
ed for the fulfilment of the holy purpose, poor, destitute 
of resources, without a knowledge of the language, to 
St. Thomas, to instil into slaves the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity.* Others followed him to the other Danish islands 

* Some conception of the spirit which animated this modern apoetlr 
may be formed, when it is known that he had fully resolved before he left 
Europe to sell himself for a slave in the West Indies, if he could find n<< 
other means of gaining access to the Negroes and accomplishing hi- 
benevolent object. 



WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 219 

Oldendorp, in his History of the Missions of the Evange- 
lical Brethren in the Caribbee islands, relates very circum- 
stantially the numerous obstacles which Uiey had there to 
encounter. Many of these arose from the ha'! spirit of 
Die European masters themselves, many from the disper- 
sion of tiie Negroes in distant plantations ; hu f thfegrei test 
consisted in the diversity of theii languages. r : be Blacks 
belonged to, or were descended from, totally different na- 
tions. Their masters were Danes, French, Gei nans, and 
Dutch, of (Liferent religious professions. The Catholics 
manifested the strongest repugnance t<> suffei their hea- 
then Negroes to be instructed in Christ] mity by Protes- 
tants; mi ; on man) occasions the inissionari - were in 
danger of teeir hves. not from Negroes — no — from the 
Christian \fh 

The perseverance of the Brethren nevertheless triumph- 
ed, and procured in 17 oo a royal ordin-jnre, facilitating 
the labour ofconvei «on, assigning salaries for < ate«-hists, 
increasing the number of the missionaries, and enjoining 
the baptism of the children of slaves. The same ordi- 
nance, though it indeed forbade all compul- >ry means in 
the attempts to convert the Blacks to Christianity, never- 
theless bad recourse itself to such, and those of ti:^ most 
efficacious kin d. It prohibited, namely, the marriage of 
all slaves who had not yet embraced Christianity. 

The Christ, in fa; !i is by this time pretty general among 
the Ne^rov* of ai>se islands. The missionaries have 
become more assHaous. The Moravians have two set- 
tlements in St. Thomas, New rlerrnhut and Niesky ; the 
like number in St. Jim, namely Bethany and Emmaus ; 
and three in St. Croix — Fne lenthal, Friederiburg, and 
Friedensfeld. From the testimony of the Danish colo- 
nists, we know what the fruits of the Gospel have been. 
The Negro slaves have become, through the doctrines of 
Christ, quieter subjects, more upright citizens, more dili- 
gent servants, more patient sufferers : and from the con- 
templation of this improvement in the Blacks, the planter* 
themselves have been rendered more humane. 



S2& SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY 



CHAPTER IX. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIFFUSION OF CHRIS- 
TIANITY IN AMERICA. 

America, for a long time after its discovery, had no 
importance in the eyes of Europeans but as a mine of 
gold, silver, and precious stones, and as a land producing 
cotton, sugar, indigo, tobacco, cacao, vanilla, dyeing 
woods, &c. For the inhabitants of this country not a 
soul felt the least concern ; on the contrary they were 
driven from th^ir former abodes or massacred, because 
the European Christians could not treat thern as market- 
able commodities. 

After the colonies of Europe in the New World had 
become more numerous and more populous, the countiies 
were more highly valued; not because the means of ap- 
proaching the savage aborigines and imparting to them a 
higher degree of civilization were multiplied, but because 
America promised new markets for the consumption of 
European manufactures. It was not European govern- 
ments, but either philanthropic individuals or Orders of 
monks, that paid attention to the noblest production of 
this quarter of the globe — to man — and attempted, by 
means of instruction, to render him worthy of his destina- 
tion in the spiritual world. In Europe, indeed, high and 
low boasted of imitating Jesus ; but scarcely one out of 
thousands thought of doing as Jesus and his holy band of 
apostles had done. Columbus seemed to have discovered 
a new world merely to infect the old one with new poi- 
sons ; nay, the very Europeans who emigrated to the co- 
lonies became more servile, and seemed, by settling on 
the other side of the Atlantic, to have lost their title to 
European rights. 

These felt indignantly the oppression of the mother 
country. They did, what always has been and always 
will be clone, when nations possessed of better know- 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERICA. 221 

ledge are ill treated and neglected by imprudent rulers. 
The English colonies in North America separated them- 
selves from the parent state, and flourished in indepen- 
dendence as a democratic confederation. Thirty-five 
years later Spanish America followed their example. 
From this period the i\evv World acquires a political, not 
merely a commercial, importance for the Old. Hereto- 
fore the life of America constituted but one and the same 
life with that of Europe. The former separated, and the 
latter isolated and limited to itself, nearly as it was ante- 
rior to the sixteenth century —the effects of the revolutions 
of America are not to be calculated x\s the once flou- 
rishing Asia was eclipsed by Europe, so Europe is likely 
to be surpassed by the youthful America. In America 
we find a free and fresh development of reason and cf 
every moral faculty, to which domestic, civil, and political 
institutions must conform, as means to the end — in Europe 
antiquated prejudices, customary formalities, to which, in 
state and church, in town and vdlage, the mental powers, 
as means, are rendered subservient : there, independent 
Christianity in churches of various forms — here, priestly 
violence, adherence to ceiemonies, and intolerance in. 
matters of conscience and religion. 

When Christianity passed over from Asia to the colder 
regions of philosophizing Europe, it underwent the most 
violent, the most unnatural changes from nation to nation, 
from age to age, from council to council. Hierarchy, 
dogmatism, ceremonies, and symbols usurped the place of 
the divine, the living, the simnie, of the revelation of Jesus. 

With the passage of European Christianity to America 
new changes are preparing for it. In the feeling of their 
independence, the States beyond the Atlantic will not 
lGng look to another quarter of the globe for decisions and 
oracles. The churches will assume other, and assuredly 
simpler forms, agreeably to the higher cultivation and 
superior knowledge of the times. America has not yet 
produced any Reformers. It needs none. The vital 
power of this portion of the world has more need of its 
undivided energy, to form and combine into a whole the 
heterogenous masses of society v which are constantly re 
i'eiving accessions bv fresh emigrations from abroach 

1 9"- 



222 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY, 

What the Europeans have hitherto brought thither wa£ 
only the fruit of their political, ecclesiastical, and acade- 
mical relations, the leavings of European ages, scarcely fit 
for American climates and localities. Much of it still 
subsists, because those who carried it thither are still 
living. But. the American atmosphere already operates 
perceptibly on the exotic plant, to make it the child of its 
own influences. The word of God will remain, but not 
the European exposition ; the doctrine and revelation of 
Jesus will remain, but not the Acta Conciliorum, the 
Augsburg Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism. 

The number of persons living on the thirteen millions 
of square miles in the two Americas is estimated by 
Humboldt, the celebrated traveller, at 34,284,000. OY 
these 13,162,000 are Whites; 8,610,000 Indians; 
6,223,000 Negroes ; and 6,289,000 of mixed races. 
According to the same writer, Spanish continental 
America has a population of sixteen, and Portuguese 
America of four millions ; while the English language is 
spoken by 11,297,500 persons ; and seven millions and a 
half of the aborigines still retain their native idioms, and 
are almost utter strangers to those of Europe. He seems 
however, to have fallen into a palpable error in compre- 
hending the total population of America, with the ex- 
ception of 820,000 yet independent Indians, under the 
denominations of Roman Catholics and Protestants, and 
representing the number of the former as being 22, 1 77,000, 
and that of the latter, 11,287,000. There can be no 
doubt that a very large proportion of the Indians and 
Negroes, whom, as it may be seen above, he sets down as 
constituting together about fifteen millions, or nearly half 
the population of this extensive portion of the globe, are 
still heathen ; to say nothing of the merely nominal 
Christianity which prevails in a large part of the other 
half. 

The religious notions communicated to the converted 
Indians by missions of the Catholic church consist, in 
fact, but too often in external forms and ceremonies and 
constraint of conscience. In America too, the divine 
spirit of Jesus is much less conspicuous than the earthly 
mint of the monastic orders. Hierarchical honour and 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERTCA. 223 

the interest of the church are but too busy behind the 
ostensible image of the honour of God and the salvation 
of miserable souls. 

The missions of the Protestant church, on the other 
hand, have not always been entitled to praise. The first 
fourteen Protestant missionaries proceeded in the year 
1556 from Geneva to the wilds of the New World: 
thousands have since followed from various countries in 
all directions, with the best intentions, but not always with 
genuine apostolic unction. The Quakers, Baptists, Me- 
thodists, and Evangelical Brethren, have approved them- 
selves the most active. 

The missionaries of the two communions, Catholic and 
Protestant — I mean the majority of them and not the 
highly laudable exceptions on both sides — pursued in 
some respects opposite ways for the accomplishment of 
their ends. The Catholics strove first to civilize the 
Savages by means of new habits, by external discipline, 
and by winning the senses, in order to prepare and render 
them susceptible of the more sublime of the divine revela- 
tions. The Protestant missionaries, on the contrary, en- 
deavoured to produce external improvement by amending 
the heart and soul. They related to the Savages the 
history of the incarnation, life, sufferings, and death, of 
the Son of God, and hoped, with a genuine faith in 
miracles, that, by this history, by this direction of hearts to 
the Lamb of God and to his blood, all was done, and 
that grace would be mighty in the Savages. They ex- 
pected every good thing, every Christian and every civil 
virtue, to spring from love to the Saviour. 

Both courses had their advantages and their disadvan- 
tages. Souls were gained by both : and though the reli- 
gious notions of the baptized were most imperfect, con- 
fused, and absurd — and how could they be otherwise ? — 
still the Savage was rendered nearer akin by them to the 
more civilized European. The way to improvement was 
opened. We find in Hayti an independent State founded 
by Negroes, with a constitution, manners, laws, and regu- 
lations, which rival those of the most polished European 
nations. In another century our descendants will see 
new empires of the copper-coloured aborigines of America 



224 SURVEY OF CHRISTJANITW 

flourishing in Christian civilization; and the Muses ot 
Greece and Rome, England, France, Italy, and Ger- 
many, will have their temples in the now impenetrable 
forests along the Apalachian Mountains and the Cordil- 
leras de los Andes. 

The preceding observations, however, apply rather to 
America as it was, than to the present state of that im- 
mense continent, over great part of winch a new day has 
begun to dawn. The separation of the Spanish colonies 
from the mother country, and the general diffusion of 
liberty and knowledge among them, are opening a way for 
the propagation of Christian truth and all its attendant 
blessings, beyond any expectations which a few years 
since the most ardent mind could have reasonably in- 
dulged. From Mexico to Patagonia, throughout regions 
covered until these days as with the shadow of death, the 
germ of intellectual and moral life is beginning to expand. 
In the whole range of the Spanish Americas, not only i? 
the unhallowed slave trade effectually prohibited, but the 
very incentive to the crime has been removed by pro- 
visions for the early and gradual abolition of slavery itself. 
All persons of every colour, born subjects of the inde- 
pendent States, are declared free from their birth ; and 
the governments of all these States have agreed that dif- 
ference of colour shall not produce any difference in the 
civil condition of their subjects. With a laudable solici- 
tude for the intellectual cultivation of the latter, these 
governments are moreover actively promoting general edu- 
cation by the foundation and endowment of academical 
and scholastic institutions. Already has the city of Buenos 
Ayres a university with upward of four hundred students, 
and thirty free schools supported by the government, and in 
which the British system of instruction is introduced, 
besides seventy-five private schools, containing together 
about five thousand children. The sum appropriated by 
the government to the purposes of education for the year 
1825 was 1 '25,000 dollars. The increased thirst after 
knowledge, which pervades the population of these neu 
independent States, may be inferred from the fact, that at 
the commencement of the revolution, in 1810, the United 
Provinces of La Plata had but one printing-press and pw 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON AMERICA. 225 

newspaper ; whereas there are now in the city of Buenos 
Ayres alone seven periodical papers, copies of which are 
found in all places of general resort. 

In the State of Colombia also Model Schools for train- 
ing* professors and teachers have been founded by its presi- 
dent, Bolivar, the great champion of South American 
liberty, who has appropriated 20,000 dollars to the estab- 
lishment of schools on the British svsi.em ; and Mr. Lan- 
caster, one of the chief propagators of that system, is resi- 
ding at Caraccas with a view to this object. The same 
statesman has also issued a decree for sending two young 
men from every province in Peru to England, there to re- 
ceive at the expense of the government the best education 
that can be obtained ; and ten of these young men are 
now pursuing their studies in the neighbourhood of Lon- 
don. On their return to their native land they are destined 
to fill important stations in the great work of general illu- 
mination. 

The government of Mexico takes its share in the same 
laudable design. Here the first school on the British sys- 
tem was opened in 1822, and some time afterwards the large 
and beautiful convent of Bethiehein vvas appropriated to the 
purposes of education. Here has been formed an acade- 
mical institution, calculated to afford education to 1360 
pupils, and divided into three departments: one of these is 
destined to be a Model or Centra] School for training 
teachers and professors, who, on finishing their education, 
are to be sent into f he different provinces of the State, in 
order to fulfil the desire of the government, which is, to es- 
tablish in every village throughout Mexico a school, a prints 
ing-press, and a chapel. 

The Peruvian government has likewise directed the es- 
tablishment at its expense of a central school on the Bri- 
tish system for the children of either sex in Lima, and de- 
partmental schools in the capital of every department of 
that State ; and the State of Vera Cruz has allotted 30,000 
dollars per annum for promoting public education, in addi- 
tion to the local funds and free contributions previously de- 
voted to that purpose. 

Encouraged by these dispositions, the Christian Socie- 
ties of England and the United States have embraced every 



226* SURVEY OP CHBISTIAKITYY 

opportunity of promoting the emancipation of the people 
of Spanish America from the fetters of superstition, by the 
circulation of the Scriptures, tracts, and translations of 
works calculated to convey just notions on the subject of 
religion. To this object the British and Foreign Bible So- 
ciety devoted in one year nearly 35O0Z., and in this career 
of benevolence it is vigorously followed by the American 
Bible Societies. Resident or travelling agents are the me- 
dium by which these institutions are acting, and their efforts 
have led to the formation of local societies, such as the 
Colombian Society and the Society of La Guayra, for the 
promotion of the same object. A disposition to receive 
the Scriptures is manifested in all quarters, and translations 
of them into vernacular languages in which no version ex- 
ists are required. In addition to the ancient Peruvian 
translation, o*' which the New Testament has been com- 
pleted, there is a prospect of obtaining a version in the 
Guarani, a language extensively spoken in Paraguay ; and 
another, in Aimara, has been undertaken at the charge of 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, 



PART THE FIFTH, 



SOUTH INDIA. 

4 

CHAPTER I. 

NEW HOLLAND — FIRST CHRISTIAN SETTLEMENT IN 
NEW ZEALAND. 

It yet remains for us to cast a look at that insular world 
in the southern hemisphere, extending eastward from the 
Asiatic islands to the West American Ocean. If Australia 
be not the youngest offspring of the globe, the last land that 
has issued from the bosom of the deep, still it is that por- 
tion of the world which Europeans have last visited and ex- 
plored. It occupies with its islands an area one-fourth 
larger than the whole of Europe. 

Here man is still in a state of original barbarism. But 
how ignorant soever the rudest tribe may be of the simplest 
conveniences of life ; how meagre soever their language, 
how obtuse their faculties may seem ; how insensible so- 
ever the heart may often be here where man can murder 
his fellow-creature and sink immediately after the horrid act 
into the most stupid indifference, like the ferocious beast, 
which no longer recollects the deed when it has once quit- 
ted the bloody spot ; how cruel the disposition of particu- 
lar hordes, who yet devour human flesh, and bury the suck- 
ling alive with its deceased mother : still all these Savages 
have within them germs of religion, notions of superior 
beings, belief in immortality. 

We know as yet but little of the extent and interior of 
New Holland, the largest of the South Sea islands, or, as 
it is perhaps more properly considered, the fifth continent 
of our globe — to say nothing of its inhabitants and their 



223 SURVElT OF CHRISTIANITY. 

religious ideas. They mostly live, like the first of mankind^ 
in trunks of trees hollowed out by fire and in huts made 
of boughs. Their social relations are still those of the 
primitive patriarchal world. They have neither kings nor 
princes ; the father of the family is its head, and age is reve- 
renced. They are rude, savage, but not without a taste 
for the arts. On the rocks in many places are to be seen 
figures of men, animals, weapons, though imperfectly sculp- 
tured with imperfect, tools, yet often remarkably correct in 
the outline. Their few implements and fishing-nets dis- 
play ingenuity. 

Since the English in 1788 began to settle here, and 
founded the colonies of Sydney, Paramatta, Hawkesbury, 
Newcastle, &c, which they partly peopled with convicts 
of every class, they have not found means to establish any 
thing like a social intercourse with the natives. They were 
too shy and too suspicious of the strangers ; these, however, 
won by degrees the confidence of some of the chiefs, whom 
they sought to make acquainted with European luxuries^ 
with a view to excite in them a desire for knowledge and 
civilization. The business proceeded very slowly. The 
ministers in the colonies found little opportunity to impart 
notions of divine things to the Savages, and were obliged 
to confine themselves almost entirely to the instruction and 
conversion of the numerous convicts sent hither to cultivate 
the land. In fact, they had more than enough to do to 
awaken Christian sentiments and ideas in this reprobate 
crew, addicted to drunkenness, gaming, lewdness, theft, 
murder, and every crime. Their labours, combined with 
the severity of the civil laws, have not, as we learn from 
year to year, proved fruitless. 

At the beginning of 1825 an Auxiliary Church Mission- 
ary Society was formed in New South Wales under the 
patronage of the then governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, who 
granted to the London Missionary Society ten thousand 
acres of land for the purpose of establishing a mission among 
the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. It was expected 
that the appointment of missionaries, to reside among the 
people, and to labour for their civilization and general im- 
provement, might prove the means of preventing the recur- 
rence of the alarming and fatal contests which had recently 



NEW HOLLAND. £29 

taken place between them and the Europeans, the destruc- 
tion of property, and the loss of human life. The increased 
extent of more populous coast now occupied by the settle- 
ment of Port Macquarie and the more recent establishment 
at Moreton Bay, indeed, rendered it expedient to resort to 
every prudent measure for maintaining a good understand- 
ing with the natives. The spot selected for the commence- 
ment of missionary labours in this quarter is situated on the 
sea-coast, about forty miles north of Sydney, near Lake 
Macquarie, and called Reid's Mistake. We are assured 
that the missionary appointed to this station finds the study 
of the language of the natives, from its affinity to that of 
Otaheite where he previously resided, comparatively easy, 
and he has made considerable progress in an attempt to- 
wards the formation of one of their dialects into a written 
language, a printed specimen of which has been transmit- 
ted to England. Owing to the great expense attending this 
mission, the directors of the London Missionary Society. 
at whose cost it is undertaken, have been induced to apply 
to the local government for aid, in support of the measures 
requisite for promoting industry and civilization among the 
aborigines dwelling near the station ; but, should this appli- 
cation prove unsuccessful, it is probable that the mission 
will be abandoned. 

To the grant above mentioned to the London Missionary 
Society, Sir Thomas Brisbane added during his government 
a grant of ten thousand acres to the Church Missionary 
Society, and another to the Wesleyan Missionary Society 
of double that quantity, in consideration of its more exten- 
sive establishment in the colony. In these grants, which 
are to be occupied for the benefit of the aborigines of New 
South Wales, a sure foundation has been laid, it may be 
hoped, for the permanent and successful exertions of the 
different Societies. 

By the Wesleyan Society a mission has been commenced 
among the natives in the vicinity of Wellington, of whom 
the missionary gives the following account : — M It is im- 
possible to state with precision the number of natives in this 
neighbourhood ; but certainly it is not considerable. There 
are five tribes besides the Bathurst tribe : their usual places 
of resiort are wsiy miles from Wellington, but occasionallv 

SO 



230 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

they all visit this spot. How large these tribes may be it 
is hazardous to conjecture, a whole tribe having perhaps 
never been seen together : they are commonly divided into 
groupes of sixty or seventy. They are in general taller, 
stouter, and more athletic than the Blacks nearer the colo- 
ny, and they evince some superiority of intellect : in point 
of ignorance and behaviour, both are on the same level. 

" They are perpetually roving from place to place, either 
as prompted by caprice or in search of food. They build 
no houses, and their only covering is the skin of the opos- 
sum ; but they generally go naked, and even -in cold and 
wet weather sleep on the bare ground, without shelter, in 
the open air, with only a fire by their side to keep them 
warm. They live on kangaroos, emus, opossums, snakes, 
fish, &c. of which kinds of food there is aiwaye a plentiful 
supply. The women are not allowed to partake of the 
animals procured by their husbands, but left to seek their 
own subsistence, which chiefly consists of large grubs found 
at the roots of young trees. 

" They have some notion of a Supreme Being, whom 
they call Murrooberrai, and who, they believe, produces 
the thunder and lightning ; but they pay him no worship, 
and seem never to think of him but when it thunders, and 
then their only sentiment is that of terror. They have also 
some idea of a future state of existence : they believe that 
though they fc tumble down' — the expression which they 
use for dying—they shall fc rise up again ;' but it will be as 
human beings in this world. They think, however, that 
their future condition will be affected by their conduct in 
the present state, and that he who has killed most of his 
fellow-men will rise up under the most adverse circum- 
stances. Murder seems to be the only crime which in 
their apprehension will be visited with punishment hereafter. 
These sentiments, however, defective and obscure as they 
are, have but little practical influence ; and they appear, 
indeed, never to advert to them but when questioned on 
the subject. 

" They frequently express an earnest desire to have some 
person to instruct them in agriculture and to build houses. 5 ' 
To this statement the Committee of the Society em- 
phatically added : " Either the natives of New Holland 



NEW ZEALAND. 231 

must become utterly extinct, or that melancholy result 
muSt be averted by the introduction of Christianity among 
them. It may be hoped that this is the design of the 
common Parent of all the tribes and nations of men ; and 
that Christianity may here also have the triumph of arrest- 
ing the progress of depopulation and death, and of ex- 
hibiting some of these tribes, the most depraved and hope- 
less of human beings, among the monuments of its saving 
mercy." To this wish every philanthropic mind must 
breathe a sincere Amen ! 

If the zeal for conversion has for the present but little 
hope of enlightening the New Hollanders, so much the 
more pleasing prospects have (since 18! 8) opened in New 
Zealand. On the application of the excellent chaplain to 
the colony, the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, in 
New South Wales, the Church Missionary Society has 
granted the annual sum of five hundred pounds for the sup- 
port of missions in New Zealand, and the late Governor 
Macquarie encouraged the benevolent enterprise. Under 
his presidency, a Society was formed in New Holland (at 
the beginning of the year 1814) for the express purpose of 
promoting the diffusion of Christianity and civilization in 
the numberless islands of .the South Sea. 

The two islands of New Zealand, each about 600 miles 
by an average breadth of 150, covered with lofty, woody 
mountains, are inhabited by more than one hundred thousand 
persons, who are naturally warlike and ingenious in the sim- 
ple wants and relations of life. Their villages, always situ- 
ated on eminences and surrounded with ramparts, ditches, 
and palisades, resemble fortresses. Their navigation extends 
to New Holland. They have successfully cultivated the 
corn received from Europeans, and grind it with hand-mills 
also given to them by the latter. They have already be- 
gun to raise potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, cabbages, 
onions, and other culinary vegetables. Their gardens are 
generally laid out in valleys or on gentle declivities. 

The New Zealanders are naturally eruel ; but on the 
other hand if Europeans have experienced the effects of 
their ferocity, it cannot be denied that they have too often 
been exasperated by the outrages committed by the crews 
of ships which have from time to time visited their coasts. 



'232 SURVEY OF C1IBISTIAMTY. 

It is nevertheless ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt 
that they are cannibals in the moral sense of the term, for 
they not only devour from superstitious motives the ene- 
mies whom they have slain in battle, but regale themselves 
on human flesh, as a sensual gratification. Though well 
aware of the abhorrence of the Europeans for this prac- 
tice, they take no pains to conceal from them their predi- 
lection for this kind of food. They eat the limbs only of 
a man ; while the whole body of a female or a child is 
considered delicious : but it is worthy of remark that 
they consider the flesh of white men as tough and unpala- 
table, compared with that of their own countrymen, and 
attribute its inferiority to the salt habitually eaten by the 
former with their food. 

Each chief is absolute in his tribe and each tribe is inde- 
pendent of its neighbour. The different tribes are engaged 
in almost incessant contentions, and live under perpe- 
tual apprehension of being destroyed by each other ; there 
being few tribes that have not, as they conceive, sustained 
wrongs from some other tribe, which they are constantly 
on the watch to revenge. The desire of a feast is perhaps 
an additional incitement to these hostilities. They gene- 
rally wait for an opportunity to take the adverse party by 
surprise, and kill all indiscriminately, not sparing even the 
women and children ; and when successful they either 
feast immediately on the bodies of their victims, or carry 
off as many of them as they can to be devoured at home. 

The almost untameable ferocity of these people may be 
inferred from the following particulars relative to a chief 
named Tooi. This man, after a long residence in Eng- 
land, and though he had returned to New Zealand under 
the charge of one of the missionaries, still scrupulously 
adhered to the barbarous prejudices of his country. His 
conversation with the officers of the English ship, Drom- 
edary, was a continued boast of the atrocities which he 
had committed during an excursion with his brother two 
months before ; and he dwelt with marked pleasure on an 
instance of his generalship, when, having forced a small 
party of his foes into a narrow place where there was no 
egress, lie was enabled to shoot sucessively twenty-two of 
ihem, while they had not the power to make the slightest 



NEW ZEALAND. 233 

resistance. To qualify this story he remarked, that 
though all the dead bodies were devoured by his tribe, 
M neither he nor his brother ate human flesh, nor did they 
fight, on Sundays." When asked why he did not turn the 
minds of his people to agriculture, he said, it was impossi- 
ble, adding : " If you tell a New Zealander to work he 
falls asleep ; but if you speak of fighting he opens his 
eyes as wide as a tea-cup ; the whole bent of his mind is 
war, and he looks upon righting as sport." 

The possession of fire-arms has of late years given to 
the tribes about the Bay of Islands a superiority which 
renders them the scourge and terror of the whole country ; 
and they fit out every summer a predatory expedition com- 
posed in general of the united strength of. three or four 
chiefs. 

These people have a custom of preserving the heads of 
trie enemies whom they have slain. They bring them back 
from their wars, in the first instance as trophies, and to be 
restored in the event of peace, to the party from which 
they were taken. These heads are baked or steamed to 
extract the moisture and then dried in a current of air ; 
and after these processes they appear as perfect as in life ; 
The natives barter them for a trifle, and many specimens 
are now in the museums of Europe. 

Notwithstanding the cruelty and vindictive spirit which 
form prominent traits in the character of the New Zealand- 
ers, still in their general intercourse with Europeans they 
have been found hospitable, courteous, and well-disposed. 
They are indeed irritable, but fond of mirth, dancing, and 
singing. 

The climate of these islands is temperate and the soil 
uncommonly fertile. The New Zealand flax, Pkormio 
tenax, the fibres of which are finer and more durable than 
those of our hemp, and of which the natives make their 
garments, mats, baskets, cordage, and nets, is a most valu- 
able gift conferred by Nature on these tribes. Before Eu- 
ropeans landed on these shores, the New Zealanders had 
arrived at such a degree of civilization as to live together 
under different chiefs, to whom the heads of other districts 
were subordinate, and to have laws relative to private pro- 
perty. Their respective possessions and even their fishing 

20* 



234 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

places were marked out. Theft and adultery were 
punished by them with death, but polygamy was allowed, 

Their religious notions have not yet been precisely as- 
certained. They have priests and priestesses of different 
classes. They pray, and consider good and ill luck as 
dispensations of a superior Being. This Being, in order 
to denote its spirituality, they liken to a shadow, which 
none can grasp and feel, which created all things, but is 
itself uncreated and imperishable. 

The Rev. Mr. Marsden, the apostle of the New Zea- 
landers and their first instructer in agriculture, soon after 
his arrival at Port Jackson and Sydney, became acquainted 
with chiefs who had come thither from New Zealand. — 
He treated them kindly, learned something of their lan- 
guage, gave them maize and wheat for seed, and taught 
them to till the ground and to make agricultural imple- 
ments. Seeing the docility of these people, and learning 
from them how welcome teachers of European arts would 
be in their country, he purchased a brig, to facilitate the 
intercourse with them, and in May 1814 sent thither some 
persons from England, destined for missionaries among 
the Heathen, to examine the localities. These were so 
favourably received by King Duaterra at Ranghehoo, that 
Mr. Marsden resolved the same year to conduct a mis- 
sionary colony thither. This plan he carried into execu- 
tion. Duaterra was the sovereign of an extensive terri- 
tory. The chiefs of four districts were subject to his 
authority and many others in alliance with him. Not far 
from Ranghehoo, which consisted of two hundred houses, 
Marsden bought a plot of land of more than two hundred 
acres for twelve hatchets. Ahoodee p Gunna, a petty 
chief to whom the land belonged, publicly declared before 
all the people that it was now the exclusive property of 
the white men, and tabooed, that is, religiously conse- 
crated, to their use. The written contract prepared by 
Europeans was signed by the seller, not wifh his name, 
but with an exact representation of the fantastic figures 
with which, according to the custom of his country, his 
face was tattooed. 

Such was the origin of the first Christian mission in New 
Zealand. The excellent founder, on his return to Porr 



UEW ZEALAND. 235 

Jackson, was accompanied thither by ten of the natives. 
They were mostly chiefs of the nation, desirous of acquiring 
a knowledge of European arts and institutions. 

In a second visit to New Zealand, in 1819, Mr. Marsden 
formed a second missionary establishment in the Bay of 
Islands, a large bay on the north-east coast of the northern 
island, on lands purchased of a chief named Shunghee, near 
the cpah, or fortified native town of Kiddeekiddee. These 
lands consist of thirteen thousand acres, and were bought 
of the chief and his tribe for forty-eight axes. This settle- 
ment has been called Gloucester. 

In the following year, Mr. Kendall, one of the mission- 
aries, on 1ms return to England, brought with him the above- 
mentioned chief, Shunghee, and another, named Whykato. 
who received much liberal attention in London, and were 
admitted to an interview with his majesty : but as these 
Savages had not made sufficient advances in civilization to 
enable them to appreciate our institutions and manners^ 
their visit proved in its consequences detrimental not only 
to the interests of the missions but to their country in 
general. 

Shunghee was a man of a warlike spirit, and after his 
return to New Zealand, in 1821, it appeared that the great 
object which he and his companion had in view in coming 
to Europe was to procure arms and ammunition. To aug* 
ment the stores which they had by some means obtained 
when in England, they sold at Port Jackson, on their return, 
the greater part of the clothing and ironmongery with which 
the Missionary Society had furnished them at a great ex- 
pense, and purchased muskets, powder, and ball. With 
these they landed in July in the Bay of Islands, whence, in 
September, Shunghee set out at the head of a large party, 
on an expedition undertaken for the purposes of ravage and 
murder. They returned in December following, after the 
destruction, it is said, of a thousand of their comparatively 
defenceless countrymen, upon three hundred of whose bo* 
dies they feasted in the field. The settlers had the pain to 
see them come back loaded with the relics of their cruelty, 
and to witness the murder in cold blood and the devouring 
of some of their prisoners. Similar expeditions have from 
time to time succeeded, but amid these scenes of war and 



236 SURVEY OF CttRISTIANITr. 

bloodshed, the personal security of the missionaries and 
settlers was not for several years affected. 

In subsequent visits paid by the Rev. Mr. Marsden a 
third missionary settlement was formed at Pyhea on the 
south side of the Bay of Islands, since called Marsden's 
Vale, and he manifested particular anxiety that the impor- 
tant business of education should be prosecuted with all 
possible efficiency and despatch. Upon his urgent recom- 
mendation also a seminary was erected near his own house 
at Paramatta in New South Wales, for the instruction of 
New Zealand youths, with the children of the missionaries, 
not merely in the doctrines of Christianity, but also in shoe- 
makers' and tailors' work, weaving, spinning, and dressing 
flax, gardening, and farming. 

A fourth settlement has been established at Kauakaua, 
on the banks of a river of the same name, which falls into 
the Bay of Islands, and about thirty miles from Kiddeekid- 
dee. Schools have been established at the two oldest settle- 
ments, but they surfer great interruption from the continual 
wars which unsettle both adults and children. Meanwhile, 
however, the seeds of civilization are scattering among 
the natives ; their manners, in the neighbourhood of the 
Europeans, begin to be more peaceable : many of them 
manifest a strong desire for the education of their chil- 
dren, and some of the latter are making proficiency in 
reading and writing. A grammar of their language has 
been printed, and a small vessel built by the missionaries to 
facilitate their visits to distant parts of. the islands. The 
success of their agricultural labours and the increase of 
their cattle cannot fail to prove ultimately of most essen- 
tial advantage to the country in general. Some of the na- 
tives indeed have, after their example, begun to grow wheat. 

Recent accounts from this quarter, however, are of a 
discouraging nature. In 1823 the Wesley an Missionary 
Society formed a settlement in a valley ahout seven miles up 
a river falling into Whangarooa Bay, north-west of the Bay 
of Islands, to which they gave the name of Wesley Dale, 
Here. three missionaries and an assistant were stationed. 
They had erected suitable buildings and two native schools t 
and were just acquiring a facility in speaking the language, 
when various circumstances, arising out of the quarrels 






JfJCW ZEALAND. 237 

of the natives, the plunder of an English ship in the Bay- 
which one of the missionaries exerted himself to rescue, 
and the death of a neighbouring chief, named George, 
placed them in a situation peculiarly critical and dange- 
rous. The notions of satisfaction among the New Zea- 
landers, life for life, blood for blood, are deep and deadly : 
the father of George was killed many years since in the 
affair of the ship Boyd, the destruction of which was insti- 
gated by George himself, and the notion which haunted 
him in his last sickness was that he had not taken sufficient 
satisfaction of the Europeans for his father's life. This 
satisfaction he left to be executed by his heir, in the plun- 
der and probable destruction of the missionaries at Wesley 
Dale. The more friendly natives of the Bay of Islands, 
Shunghee's people, were at one time determined to fetch 
them away from George's tribe, and to punish that chief 
for the plunder of the ship Mercury ; this involved them in 
new anxieties, and they were for several months in frequent 
jeopardy of being attacked and massacred. A calmer 
state of things succeeded ; but, in January 1827, fresh dis- 
turbances took place among the natives, which terminated 
in the destruction ofthe settlement at Whangarooa. Seve- 
ral of the Church missionaries, with a party of natives from 
Kiddeekiddee, went to the assistance of their friends, 
whom they brought to the latter place. In these commo- 
tions it appears that Shunghee, the chief protector of the 
Church missionaries, was severely wounded ; and those 
missionaries, though under no fear for their personal safety* 
were apprehensive that their settlements would share the 
fate of Wesley Dale. Under these circumstances they 
deemed it expedient to send to New South Wales every 
article, not absolutely necessary for present use, but to re- 
main themselves at their post till absolutely driven away. 
From subsequent communications, however, it appears 
that the natives have been more peaceable, and that the 
British missionaries have suffered no molestation, 



238 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 



CHAPTER II. 

CONVERSION OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDERS TO CHRISTIANITY 
—SURVEY OF THE FRIENDLY AND SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

Of the religions of the ancient world the doctrines of 
Fohi and Muhamed were certainly propagated in these 
parts before those of Christianity. The Oranbadjoos, who 
rove about on the coasts of New Guinea, next to New Hol- 
land the largest of the islands of South India, are evidently 
of Asiatic origin. Their person, their language, and their 
religion, much as each may have gradually degenerated 
from its primitive type, betray this. And is not the interval 
between Malacca and New Guinea occupied by an unin- , 
terrupted chain of islands great and small ? But these 
needy Savages, without permanent abodes, whose dwell- 
ings are covered canoes, in which they coast along the 
shore to the mouths of rivers abounding in fish, care very 
little for the diffusion of their religions derived fromArabia 
and China. 

So much the more is to be hoped from the efforts of the 
Society of New South Wales and the great associations in 
London for the propagation of Christianity in this insular 
portion of the globe, where the most natural state of man, 
as in Europe the artificial, is still found in all possible 
shades ; where, as in the happy islands of the poets, we 
meet with tribes living in the lap of plenty and voluptuous- 
ness, endowed with innocence and simplicity, ar\d also 
beasts in human shape who devour their own species ; 
where the first germs of social order are discovered in the 
patriarchal relations and likewise the most barbarous des- 
potism on earth, as in New Georgia, where every thing 
belongs to the sovereign of the island and to the subject 
nothing, not even life, and where certain death awaits him 
who merely treads on the shadow of the monarch. 

The most brilliant triumph of Christianity in the regions 
of South India, or Australasia, has been achieved in the 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. . 239 

Society Islands. These are divided into two groupes, one 
of which is now distinguished by the name of the Geor- 
gian or Windward Islands, consisting of Otaheite and 
Eimeo, both subject to one king. The other groupe, which 
retains the name of the Society Islands, comprehends Hua- 
heine, Raiatea, Tahaa, Borabora, Maupiti or Maurau, and 
Maiaoiti, which have their respective chiefs, or sovereigns. 
From the period of their first discovery, these islands were 
especial favourites with Europeans for the beauty of their 
scenery, as well as for the elegant persons and mild man- 
ners of their inhabitants, The mutiny of the crew of the 
English ship, Bounty, who, after turning their commander 
adrift, carried the vessel to one of these islands, proved 
the unexpected cause of a rapid diffusion of European 
notions, sentiments, and institutions. The mutineers 
formed connexions with Otaheitean females, and taught 
their relatives and acquaintance the English language, 
English manners, and the Christian religion. 

Before any European had visited these islands, the belief 
in an invisible and almighty Supreme Being prevailed 
there. To this Being, named Eatooa Rahai, whose 
throne is the sun, a world far surpassing the earth in 
splendour, the natives addressed their prayers. In the sun 
they hoped after the dissolution of the body to find the 
blissful abode of happy spirits. The nature of Eatooa is 
mysterious and of three kinds. He is called Tone de Me- 
dooa, the father of the world ; they also make mention of 
Tooa tee te Myde, God in the Soa, and of a winged spirit, 
Mannoo te Hooa. Each island, each family, the sea, has 
its tutelar deity. In these islands the priests are the ser- 
vants of the gods and the expounders of their will. They 
require offerings and frequently human sacrifices at the 
burial-places or morals, where the spirits of the deceased 
tarry awhile in the neighbourhood of their former bodies, 
concealed in the wooden images set up near the graves ; 
and at the same time a malicious spirit, whom none but the 
priests can conciliate and direct,,, takes up his abode in a 
receptacle in which the sculls of the dead are collected. 

Since the year 1796 the London Missionary Society has 
bestowed serious attention on the propagation of Chris- 
tianity in these islands. The ship Duff* was fitted out for 



240 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the conveyance of missionaries, and in March 1797 they 
arrived at Otaheite. From various causes, however, and 
among the rest the powerful seductions to which the 
preachers themselves were exposed, their doctrines gained 
but little ground. The ignorance of the natives, and the 
difficulty of making them understand the leading tenets of 
Christianity, proved another great obstacle. 

A melancholy picture of the state of this island was 
drawn by Turnbull, who visited it between the years 1800 
and 1804 The population, estimated by Captain Cook 
in 1777 at upward of 200,000 souls, had then dwindled, 
according to Turnbull, to 5000, owing to various diseases 
and to the unnatural crime of infanticide. Pomarre, the 
king, when reproached with this practice, alleged in reply, 
that if all the children born were to be reared to maturity, 
the island would not furnish sufficient food for their support. 
The erees, or nobles, formed a society of the most licen- 
tious and profligate nature. The very principle of their 
union was a community of their women, and the murder 
at the moment of birth of all their issue of both sexes. 
The inferior classes were influenced by the example of 
these wretches, and it was computed that two- thirds of 
the births were thus stifled. 

Pomarre, son of the king of that name, who lived at 
the time when Captain Wilson brought the first mission- 
aries to the island, succeeded his father in 1803 ; and after 
that event fixed his residence near the mission-house at 
Matavai Bay, where he frequently passed whole days in 
learning to read and write ; but it was long before he ma- 
nifested any disposition to receive religious instruction. 
Possessing an intelligent mind and a good disposition, and 
inclined to religious meditations, Pomarre had been a 
zealous worshipper of the gods. By his command altars 
were erected, numberless gifts and offerings made, and 
even human victims sacrificed to them. One of the mis- 
sionaries has calculated that he put to death about a 
thousand persons from motives of piety. As soon as he 
had learned better notions of divine things he embraced 
the doctrines of Christianity with equal ardour, and became 
himself an active apostle among his people, even at the 
risk of his throne and life. 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. 241 

In 1808 the king was involved in a contest with a party 
of his subjects, who sought to deprive him of his authority. 
On this occasion the houses and gardens of the mission- 
aries were destroyed, and they, as well as Pomarre, were 
obliged to seek refuge in the island of Eimeo. In the 
following year, as there was no prospect of the king's 
reinstatement, all the missionaries excepting two repaired 
to New South Wales, whence five of them returned in 
1811 at the urgent solicitation of Pomarre, who was be- 
ginning to recover his lost power. The king now de- 
clared his conviction of the truth of the Christian religion, 
manifested a much warmer attachment to the mission- 
aries, and sent to them all his family idols, desiring that 
they would eithor throw them into the fire, or transmit 
them to Europe, " that the people of England might see 
what foolish gods the Otaheiteans formerly worshipped.' ' 
They were accordingly sent to England, and are now pre- 
served in the museum of the London Missionary Society. 
- The influence and example of Pomarre operated with 
such effect that, in 1814, about fifty of the natives had 
renounced idolatry and embraced the Christian religion : 
and the number of converts increased so rapidly as to 
amount in the following year to five hundred. Among 
these were several chiefs and the king's principal coun- 
sellor, who had assumed in baptism the name of Christo- 
pher Farefau. The ratiras, or chiefs of districts, the 
priests of the ancient gods, and all their adherents, beheld 
with indignation and astonishment the number of the 
Bure Atooa, or " praying people," as they termed the 
Christians, increasing in all quarters. They resolved to 
exterminate them, while Farefau boldly strove by word 
and deed to suppress the ancient idolatry, and won over 
the chiefs of several neighbouring islands to the sacred 
cause. At length the champions of the old system, after 
disagreeing among themselves and partly destroying one 
another, furiously attacked the Christians during divine 
service : a battle ensued, in which Pomarre and his ad- 
herents gained a complete victory. Farefau, by the king's 
command, overthrew the morais, the images of the deities, 
and the holy trees ; and the unexampled clemency with 
which Pomarre treated the vanquished and their families 

21 



242 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

produced a powerful impression on the minds of his foes. 
In this struggle d was demonstrated that the Christian 
faith had struck deeper root and spread more widely than 
its enemies imagined and than the British missionaries 
were themselves aware of. Many chiefs and priests 
publicly renounced their old religion and acknowledged 
their better convictions ; and Pomarre's authority was 
never afterwards called in question. 

In 1817 the king went over to Eimeo, where a printing- 
press had been set up, and composed with his own hands, 
under the direction of the missionaries, the alphabet at 
the beginning of the Otaheitean spelling-book, being the 
first operation of the kind ever attempted in his dominions. 
In July, in the same year, the missionaries? stated that the 
whole of the inhabitants of Otaheite, Eimeo, Tabooya- 
manoo, Huaheine, Raiatea, Toobouai, Borabora (the 
birth-place of Farefau, who died in Otaheite in 1818), 
and Maurua, hau renounced idolatry ; that the immolation 
of human victims and infanticide were suppressed ; that 
Christianity had become general throughout those islands ; 
that chapels had arisen instead of the destroyed morais, 
sixty-six having been built in Otaheite and sixteen in 
Eimeo ; that the sabbath-day was strictly observed ; that 
about four thousand persons had learned to read and many 
of them to write ; and that part of the Gospels translated 
into the native languages was then printing. 

This great work was supported by the Rev. Mr. 
Marsden with his characteristic activity. So early as the 
year 1815 he sent from Port Jackson the historical books 
of the New Testament, catechisms, and hymn-books, in 
the language of these islands ; and he caused many copies 
of the history of the Old Testament in the Otaheitean 
language to be printed in New South Wales. The 
London Missionary Society equipped in 1816 eight new 
missionaries, who took out with them materials for esta- * 
blishing a printing-office ; and by increasing the number of 
presses and erecting numerous schools the progress of 
civilization was almost incredibly accelerated in Otaheite 
and Eimeo* The names of John Davis, William Scott, 
Henry Nott, James Hayward, Samuel Tessier, William 
Henry, Charles Wilson, and Henry Bicknell, will be justly 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. 243 

preserved by history, as those of the first successful 
apostles of the Christian faith in the Society Islands. 

The principal church built by Pomarre at Papaoa in 
Otaheite may vie in magnitude, at least, with some of the 
more eminent temples of Europe, being seven hundred 
and twelve feet in length, and fifty broad ; arid having one 
hundred and thirty-three windows and twenty-serah doors. 
It was consecrated in May 1819, in the presence of be- 
tween five and six thousand of the natives. A few days 
afterwards Pomarre appeared in the character of legisla- 
tor : in a general assembly of the chiefs and people, he 
submitted to them a written code of laws which were 
un* rmously approved, and on the succeeding Sunday he 
was solemnly baptized. 

Who could have anticipated in Captain Cook's time 
the promulgation of printed laws at Otaheite, and which, 
as we are assured, the natives with few exceptions are 
capable of reading I These laws are con prised in nine- 
teen articles under the following heads : — I. Of Murder. 
2. Of Robbery. 3. Of Depredations committed by 
Swine. 4. Of Stolen Property. 5. Of Lost Property. 
6. Of Buying and Selling. 7. Of Sabbath- Breaking. 
8. Of Stirring uo War. 9. Of a Man with Two Wives. 
10. Of Wives who were cast off before the Reception of 
the Gospel. 11. Of Adultery. 12. Of Forsaking a 
Wi''e or Husband. 13. Of not Providing Food for a 
Wif?. 14. Of Marriage 16. Of Raising False Reports. 
16. Of the Judges. 17. Of Trying Causes. 18. Of 
the Courts of Justice. 19. Of the Laws in general. 

The following specimens will serve to show the spirit as 
well as the manner in which these laws are conceived. 

" Of Buying and Selling. 

" When a person buys any property, let him consider 
well before he gives his property in exchange for the pro- 
perty of another. If he exchanges property with another 
and has taken the exchanged property away and shortly 
after wishes to have his own returned, his wish shall not 
be granted unless the other pariy is agreeable. If any 
damage be found on the property, which had not been 



£44 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

discovered at the time of exchanging, it may be returned, 
but if the damage was known at the time of exchanging, 
it shall not be returned. If a person exchanges property 
for another that is sick, the sick person shall be allowed 
to see the property received in exchange, and if he does 
not like it, it shall be returned. Persons must not under- 
value or cry down the property of others ; it is very bad. 
The 'persons who are buying and selling, let themselves 
buy and sell, without the interference of those who have 
nothing at all to do with the matter." 

" Of Sabbath-Breaking. 

" It is a great sin in the eye of God to work on the 
Sabbath-day. Let that which agrees with the word of 
God be done, and that which does not, let that be left 
alone. No houses or canoes must be built, no land must 
be cultivated, nor any work done ; nor must persons ga 
any long distance on a Sabbath day. If they desire to 
hear a missionary preach they may go, although it be a 
long distance ; but let not the excuse of going to hear the 
word of God be the cover for some ether business ; let 
not this be done— it is evil Those who desire to hear 
missionaries preach on a Sabbath, let them come near at 
hand on the Saturday ; that is good. Persons on the first 
offence shall be warned ; but if they be obstinate and 
persist they shall be compelled to do work for the king." 

" Of Raising False Reports. 

"If a person raise? a false report of another, as of mur- 
der or blasphemy, stealing, or of any thing bad, that per- 
son commits a great sin The punishment of those who 
do so is thus : he must make a path four miles long and 
four yards wide, he must clear all the grass, &c. away and 
make it a good path. If a person raises a false report of 
another, but which may be less injurious than that of blas- 
phemy, &c. he shall make a path one or two miles in 
length and four yards wide. If a false report be raised 
about some very trifling affair no punishment shall be 
awarded, When the paths are made, the person who is 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. t4Sr 

the owner of the land where- the ways are made shall keep 
them in repair. Let them be high in the middle, that the 
water in wet weather may run down on each side. Should 
the relations of the person who is required to make a path 
wish to assist him, they are at liberty to do so. The 
chiefs of the land where the man is at work must provide 
him food : he must not be ill-treated ; he must not be 
compelled to work without ceasing from morning till night ; 
but when he is tired let him cease and begin again next 
day ; and when he has finished what he was appointed to 
do, he has fulfilled his punishment The judges shall make 
known to persons raising false reports the punishment they 
shall undergo." 

Article sixteen of this code contains the names of the 
judges, four hundred in number, and the eighteenth and 
nineteenth prescribe that courts of justice shall be erected 
all round Otaheite and Eimeo ; that they shall be used 
solely for the administration of justice ; that a printed copy 
of the laws shall be posted on every such house of judgment; 
and that the chiefs in the several districts shall support the 
execution of them. Murder is made punishable with death. 

The people of Huaheine have gone a step farther. A 
code of laws, adopled also by the chiefs of the islands of 
Raiatea and Taha, has been printed there : it consists of 
twenty-five articles, the last of which institutes the trial by 
jury ! 

At Raiatea, where a mission was commenced in the 
autumn of 18 18, the spot selected for the purpose was then 
a wilderness ; nor were there more than two or three 
houses in the district. In less than a year the aspect of 
the place was totally changed : instead of an almost im- 
passable wood, it presented a fine open scene, with a range 
of dwellings extending nearly two miles along the beach 
and inhabited by a thousand natives. The king had a sub- 
stantial and commodious house, wattled and plastered, with 
boarded floors, and divided into several apartments ; and 
he was the first native of the South Sea Islands, who pos- 
sessed such a habitation. The missionaries strenuously 
and successfully exerted themselves to induce the people 
to follow this example, and to abandon the pernicious 
custom of hording together m numerous families under the 



246 SURVEY OF CHRISTlA2QTr. 

same roof. They instructed them in the art of boat-build 
ing, in sawing wood and in carpenters' and smiths' work ; 
and established a Society for the Encouragement of the 
Useful Arts, and schools for adults and children. It was 
not long before two bridges of considerable extent, which 
would do credit to any village in England, were erected in 
this island. 

Here too the sugar-cane and tobacco are cultivated in 
enclosed plantations, and the produce of both is of the best 
quality. The latter yields three or four crops in the year, 
the former something more than one, and there is a mill for 
the extraction and manufacture of the sugar. The people 
have also learned to make excellent salt from sea-water by 
boiling. Most of the men are expert at making chairs, 
tables, sofas, and the like, being anxious to possess every 
article of furniture necessary to enable them to live in the 
English style. 

The picture of the improvement of the natives of Hua- 
heine and their progress in civilization, presented by the 
missionaries in 1821, is equally pleasing. " Several of 
them," say they, u have finished very neatly plastered 
dwelling-houses with doors and windows and are boarding 
their bed-rooms : many other dwellings on the same plan 
are building. Considerable progress has also been made 
in cultivation, many acres around us being enclosed and 
stocked with food of various kinds. Useful tools, pit-saws, 
&,c. together with paper and writing materials, are in great 
demand among the people. The females especially are 
much improved in their habits and appearance. When 
they procure a few yards of foreign cloth, it is not as for- 
merly bound round their loins, but made up into a gown : 
and they are instructed in needlework, so that a consider- 
able number at each station are able to make themselves 
neat and modest dresses. They have been taught also to 
make neat hats and bonnets in the European form, which 
9,re now very generally worn. The hats are made of the 
leaves of a rush very common in the islands, and the bon- 
nets of the inner bark of the hibiscus." Makine, King of 
Huaheine, appears to have been as zealous in promoting 
the civilization of his people as Pomarre in Otaheite. 

At Borobora, the natives have made extensive and 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. £47 

excellent roads, and erected a noble stone pier, which is 
carried out nearly three hundred and sixty-five feet into 
the sea. There is another pier at Maurua, from thirty to 
forty feet in width, and extending five hundred and twenty 
feet from the shore. 

Among the other sources of improvement to which the 
missionaries in Otaheite directed their attention was the 
cultivation of the sugar-cane, cotton, and coffee. Sugar- 
works were accordingly erected and a tract of land 
cleared for planting the cane, but this plan was suddenly 
frustrated, when Pomarre informed the missionaries that 
the captain of a vessel which had recently touched at the 
islands had intimated to the natives that, if the concern 
should prosper, powerful persons would come and esta- 
blish themselves in the islands, kill or make slaves of the 
people, and seize their possessions ; and that the captain 
appealed to what had taken place in the West Indies as a 
proof of the truth of his affirmation. The king added 
that, apprehending serious consequences from these alarm- 
ing reports, he could not consent to the execution of the 
plan in his islands, unless on a very limited scale; and, 
in order to satisfy Pomarre and to quiet the minds of the 
people, it was deemed advisable to relinquish the under- 
taking altogether. A cotton manufactory, however, has 
been established in Eimeo ; and a quantity of strong 
calico, which is preferred by the natives to that brought by 
ships, has been made there. 

Pomarre, under whose auspices so important a revolu- 
tion has been affected in this portion of the globe, died in 
December 1 82 1 , at the age of about forty-seven years, soon 
after the arrival of a deputation sent out by the London 
Missionary Society, to examine into the state of its settle- 
ments in the South Seas. His infant son was acknow- 
ledged to be his successor, and placed for education at the 
academy established by the missionaries at Bogue's Har- 
bour, Eimeo, where he too died in January 1827, after an 
illness of a few days. 

The deputation mentioned above, in their communication 
to the Directors of tLe Society, thus express themselves 
on the subject of the change which has taken place if) 
Otaheite : — 



248 SURVEY OF CUBXSTIANITTV 

u A nation of pilferers have become eminently trust- 
worthy. A people formerly universally addicted to las* 
civiousness in all its forms have become modest and vir- 
tuous in the Highest degree. Those who a few years ago 
despised all forms of religion, except their own horrid and 
cruel superstitions, have universally declared their appro- 
bation of Christianity ; study diligently those parts of the 
Christian Scriptures which have been translated for them, 
ask earnestly for more and appear conscientiously to regulate 
themselves by those sacred oracles under the direction of 
their teachers, whose self-denying zeal and perseverance 
have been almost as remarkable as the success with which 
God has been pleased to honour them. 

" Better houses and chapels have been built, or are in pre- 
paration for being built, at neariy every station — rapid im- 
provement in reading and writing — European dresses gra- 
dually superseding. the Taheitian— the chiefs ingeniously 
and diligently building their own boats in the European 
form, with European tools— many cultivating tobacco 
and sugar, and nearly all collecting and preparing cocoa- 
nut oil. 

" At that time a road intended to go round the island 
had been made to a considerable extent by persons 
doomed by the new laws to that labour for misdemea- 
nours. Formerly there was no road in any part of the 
island but the narrow winding tracks by which the natives 
found their way from one place to another." 

Of Huaheine they say : — " Everything bears the mark of 
great improvement among the natives ; their enclosures, 
their plastered houses, their manners, and especially their 
dress, which is as much European as they can obtain by 
purchase the means of making it. In the noble place 
of worship, which is well built and plastered, well floored 
with timber, and of which a considerable part is neatly 
pewed, the chiefs and great numbers of the people were 
dressed quite in the English manner from head to foot." 

The sentiments of the natives themselves on the im- 
provement of their condition may be collected from the 
following passages of addresses, delivered at a general 
meeting of one of the Auxiliary Missionary Societies which 
v hev have instituted : 



SOCIETY ISLANDS. 249 

" Let us remember our former stated-how many chil- 
dren were killed and how few kept alive— but now none 
are killed ; the cruel practice is abolished. Parents hare 
now the pleasure of seeing their three, five, and some 
their ten children, the principal part of which would not 
have been alive, had not God sent his word to us. 

u Formerly the servants of the king would enter a per 
son's house and commit the greatest depredations ; the 
master would sit as a poor captive and look on, without 
daring to say a word : they would seize his bundle of cloth, 
kill his largest pigs, pluck the best of his bread-fruit, take 
the largest of his taros, his finest sugar-canes, and the ripest 
of his bananas, and even pull up ihe very posts of nis house 
for fire- wood to co<»k them with. Is there not a man pre- 
sent who was obliged, and actually did bury his new canoe 
under the sand, to secure it from these desperate men ? — - 
But now all these customs are abolished ; we are now living 
in peace and without fear. We have no need to place our 
pigs underneath our beds, and our little rolls of cloth for our 
pillows, to secure them : our pigs may run about where they 
please, and our little property may hang in the different 
parts of our house and no one touches it. We are now 
sleeping on comfortable bedstead- ; we have now decent 
seats ( sofas j to sit on ; we have now neat plastered houses 
to dwell in, and the little property we have we can now 
call our own/' 

In this work of civilization the press acts a most impor- 
tant part, and the missionaries have used great industry in 
the employment of so powerful an auxiliary. They have 
printed in the Otaheitean language various elementary 
works and of some of them large and repeated impressions ; 
the revised Code of Laws, Reports of the Auxiliary Mis- 
sionary Society, and nearly the whole of the books of the 
New Testament. Other portions of Scripture in the native 
tongue are in progress, and the compilation of an English 
and Otaheitean Dictionary is commenced. A public libra- 
ry for the Georgian Islands has been formed at Brewer's 
Point, Otaheite ; Auxiliary Societies in support of the mis- 
sions have been founded in several of the islands ; and such 
is the zeal with which thev are supported, that the produce 
of the contributions in 18 < 21 > consisting chiefly of cocoa-nut 



250 SURVEY OP CHRISTIANITY. 

oil, added upward of 1800Z. sterling to the funds of the pa- 
' rent institution. 

Such have been the consequences of the introduction of 
Christianity into these islands ; and it must afford unfeigned 
pleasure to every philanthropic mind to learn, that the sub- 
stantial blessings conferred by it are not only shared by the 
neighbours of those by whom its doctrines were first em- 
braced, but are rapidly spreading to more distant quarters. 
We are assured that there are already twenty-one islands in 
these seas, in which the Gospel has been embraced and in 
which not an idolater remains. 

Among the islands in this predicament are the groupes 
known by the names of the Paumotu, Raivaivai, and Har- 
vey Islands, in all which the first seeds of Christianity have 
been sown by native teachers from Otaheite. 

The first of these groupes, formerly called Pailiser 
Islands, the chief of which is Anaa, is situated about 250 
miles east of Otaheite. The second, said to consist of six 
islands, and named after the principal of them, lies about 
500 miles southward of the same island; and the Harvey 
Islands, the aiost important of the three, are distant about 
600 miles in a west-south-west direction. They consist of 
eight islands, containing a population exceeding that of the 
Society Islands by two or three thousand souls. Here 
within two years a most extraordinary change lias been 
effected, and that solely by the ministry of native teachers, 
eleven of whom are stationed in this groupe. Rarotonga, 
the inhabitants of which are estimated at between six and 
seven thousand, was formerly governed by three kings, or 
principal chiefs, between whom frequent and sanguinary 
wars were waged ; but since the introduction of Christianity, 
the whole authority is vested by universal consent in one of 
the three, and thus contention for power, that apple of dis- 
cord, has been wisely cast away by these islanders. Can- 
nibalism, infanticide, and idolatry have ceased ; and their 
principal idol has been sent to England and deposited in 
the museum of the London Missionary Society. Chapels 
have been erected throughout the groupe, schools estab- 
lished, numerous plastered dwellings built, and many of 
them provided with furniture in the European fashion ; the 
people are decently clothed and industrious in the cultiva- 



r 



FRIENDLY ISLANDS. 251 

tion of the ground ; nay, in the island of Aitutake, they 
have already constructed a coral pier, 600 feet in length, 
and 1 8 in breadth. At Mautii, where the frigate La Blonde 
touched on her return from the Sandwich Islands, her com- 
mander, Lord Byron, and his officers, were highly pleased 
with the neatness of the church and dwellings of the native 
teachers and the state of the people in general. 

According to the latest accounts received from the South 
Seas, preparations are making to plant native teachers in 
the Marquesas, the Feejee, and the Tonga or Friendly 
Islands. It was at Tongataboo, the principal of the latter, 
that in 1797 ten missionaries were settled by the London 
Missionary Society, three of whom fell victims to intestine 
commotions and the ferocity of some of the natives. Since 
that period we have received a very circumstantial account 
of the character, manners, customs, language, and religion 
of these people from the pen of Mr. William Mariner, who, 
during a residence of some years in this groupe, enjoyed 
peculiarly favourable opportunities of making himself inti- 
mately acquainted with them. He speaks in high terms of 
the extreme cleanliness, the extraordinary ingenuity, and 
the many excellent qualities, of the Tonga islanders ; among 
whom much greater respect is paid to the sex, and the fe- 
male character is in consequence far more estimable, than 
in the other islands of the South Seas to which the light of 
Christianity has not yet penetrated. Here have long sub- 
sisted firmly established social relations, princes, gradations 
of ranks, a regular agriculture, traffic by barter, and respect 
for property. Here is found the belief in superior and infe- 
rior deities and in immortality : but here too are found 
greedy and ambitious priests and human sacrifices. 

These accounts also state that between forty and fifty 
native teachers from the Georgian and Society Islands are 
already engaged in communicating the Gospel to the in- 
habitants of islands more or less distant from their own ; 
and at least fifty more are ready to go forth on the same 
important mission. 

While this extraordinary revolution is proceeding in the 
South Pacific, a change not less astonishing has been com- 
menced in the Sandwich Islands, in the North, the largest 
of which, Owhyhee, or as it is now written, Hawaii, ac* 



252 SURVEY OF CHltlSTXAKITY. 

quired a melancholy celebrity by the death of Captain 
Cook, the great circumnavigator. The groupe consists of 
ten islands, two of which, however, are but bare uninhabited 
rocks. The population of the other eight, estimated by 
Cook at 400,000, has been reduced by war, pestilence, and 
vice, and is now estimated at between 130,000 and 1 5l/,000, 
of which number Hawaii contains 85.000, and Oahu, or 
Woahoo, 20,000. 

The narrative of Captain Cook's third voyage introduced 
to the civilized world a young chief, whose ambition, se- 
conded by his politic encouragement of European settlers, 
had raised him, at the time of Vancouver's visit, in 1794, 
to the sovereignty of Hawaii. With a view probably to 
confirm and consolidate his newly acquired authority, 
Tammehameha, in an assembly of his principal chiels on 
board Vancouver's ship, the Discovery, made a formal ces- 
sion of the island to the king of Great Britain, with the nn* 
derstanding, that no interference should take place in the 
religion, government, and domestic economy of the natives. 
He then began to direct his attention towards the creation 
of a naval force, for the purpose of prosecuting his plans 
against the other islands, which were at that time governed 
by independent chiefs. He purchased fire-arms and ships 
of the English and Americans, built smaller vessels himself, 
and subdued the islands of Maui, Morokai, and Woahoo, in 
the latter of which he afterwards fixed his residence. The 
chief of Tauai voluntarily submitted, and thus by degrees 
the whole groupe was reduced under the authority of Tam- 
mehameha. 

At the period of Kotzebue's visit to the Sandwich 
islands, this sovereign possessed a large three-masted ship 
and a brig capable of carrying eighteen guns ; and his resi- 
dence at Honoruru, in the island of Woahoo, was defended 
by a fort mounting thirty pieces of cannon, and guarded 
night and day by two hundred men. Here he lived in the 
European fashion, and had engaged in his service many Eng- 
lish and Americans, whom he paid in lands, to which a 
certain number of the natives were attached. In the 
prosecution of hie plans Tammehameha was strenuously 
supported by Karaimokoo, governor of Woahoo, who was 
familiarly named by the English, Billy Pitt, on account of 
his influence with the king. 



SANDWICH ISLANDS. 253 

Tammehameha expired at an advanced age, in the 
island of Hawaii in March 1819. Aware of his approach- 
ing dissolution, he assembled round him the chiefs of the 
different islands, and exhorted them to hold sacred his 
useful institutions, u for which," said he, " we are indebted 
to the white men who have come to reside among us." 
He enjoined them most particularly to respect these stran- 
gers, to hold their property inviolate and to continue to 
them the rights and privileges which he had conferred. 
He appointed his son, Riho-riho, his successor, and left 
half a million of dollars, chiefly accumulated by traffic 
with Europeans, besides goods and armed merchant- vessels 
to a like amount. 

In consequence of the accounts of the change pro- 
duced in Otaheite and the neighbouring isles successively 
brought to the Sandwich Islands, the chiefs of Hawaii, 
Woahoo, and Tauai, renounced their idols in 1819, and 
committed them with every vestige of idolatry to the 
flames. In the following year missionaries from the Uni- 
ted States of America arrived at Woahoo and formed es- 
tablishments in that and two other Islands. 

In 1822 the members of the deputation sent by the 
London Missionary Society to the South Seas were in- 
duced to accept the offer of a free passage from Huaheine 
to the Sandwich Islands, made to them by Captain Kent, 
of his Majesty's cutter, Mermaid, and took with them a 
missionary, Mr. Ellis, and two native teachers, with the 
intention of leaving them at the Marquesas on their return. 
On their arrival at Karakakooa Bay, Hawaaii, Kooakeene, 
governor of the island, and brother-in-law to Riho-riho, 
expressed an earnest desire that they might settle there, 
as he wished to be instructed in the knowledge of the true 
God, having already received some information on the sub- 
ject of the Christian religion from an Otaheitean. The 
natives in general manifested the like desire for religious 
instruction and to be taught to read and write. 

Captain Kent's real errand was to deliver to kireg Tam- 
mehameha a schooner presented to him by his Britannic 
Majesty, as a token of acknowledgment for the uniform 
attention paid by him to English vessels touching at hie 
islands for refreshments. Before these instructions coulr* 

22 



254 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

be carried into effect, the old king had been succeeded by 
his son Riho-riho, who resided in Woahoo, and thither 
the Mermaid of course proceeded. 

Tamoree, the king or principal chief of Tauai, wh6 
had shown the greatest kindness to the American missiona- 
ries from their first arrival in his island, happened to be just 
at this time at Woahoo. A native of Otaheite, who had left 
his country when a boy and been absent from it above thirty 
years, held the post of steward to a brother of the queen's. 
This man, hearing of the arrival of some of his country- 
men at Woahoo, invited them to his house and discovered 
in conversation that the wife of one of them, named Au- 
na, was his own sister. In consequence of this discovery, 
the king and queen of Tauai invited the Otaheiteans to be 
their guests, and made particular inquiry concerning the 
state of things in the Society Islands. The result was an 
earnest solicitation that Auna and his wife might be per- 
mitted to remain in the Sandwich Islands, to instruct the 
people u in the word of God and the good u av to heaven. " 
Not only was this request complied with, but it was agreed 
that Mr. Ellis should fetch his family from Huaheine and 
also settle in the country. This missionary accordingly 
applied himself with diligence to the study of the language, 
and, from its close affinity to the Otaheit;ean, he was able 
in two months to speak and to preach in it with ease and 
fluency. 

It was not long before Riho-riho declared his formal ac- 
ceptance of "the good word," and himself, his wives, and 
a great number of chiefs, were receiving instruction in 
reading and writing, so that the royal residence and the 
houses of the chiefs had the appearance of school-rooms. 
Before the deputation left the Sandwich Islands the king 
and queen of Tauai, accompanied by Auna, made a tour 
round the island of Hawaii, during which above a hundred 
idols were discovered at one place, in caves situated 
among the mountains, where they had been concealed on 
the formal abolition of idolatry in 1819; these were all 
burned together, and many more were destroyed in other 
parts of the Island. 

In the same year (1322), an American captain, named 
(Gardner, thus described the state of these Islands : " The 



SANDWICH ISLANDS. 255 

Sandwich Islands begin to have a considerable traffic and 
the natives are making rapid strides in civilization. For 
several years past they have been visited by so many En- 
glish and American ships that they are gradually adopting 
our manners and relinquishing their own. The bow and 
the spear are no longer to be seen ; the harsh war-sound 
of the Triton's horn has ceased to be heard, as have also 
the screams of the victim destined to the slaughter. Idola- 
try is at an end : the bells of the churches alone break the 
silence of the Sabbath, and the mild beams of Christianity 
have already begun to operate in these children of nature. 
Several missionaries from the United States reside among 
them : they have founded a school where many of the 
youth receive instruction in reading, writing, drawing, &c, 
which together with the religious exhortations at church, 
contributes daily to exalt and refine the moral character 
of these people. " 

The natives possessed at that time ten ships built and 
equipped in the European fashion, none of which is under 
120 tons burden, besides a great number of schooners 
and sloops, employed in the conveyance of sandal wood 
and provisions from one island to another. Most of these 
were manned by natives, who make excellent sailors. 
While Captain Gardner was at Woahoo. one of their ves- 
sels, manned entirely by natives, but commanded by a 
white, returned from a voyage to Kamtschatka. In ex- 
change for a cargo of salt which she had carried thither, 
this ship brought back smoked salmon, cables, linen, hard- 
ware, and other articles, and likewise a written grant from 
the Russian governor of a large tract of land to the king 
of the Sandwich Islands. 

The visit of Riho-riho and his queen to England, in 
1823, was expected to give in its effects a powerful im- 
pulse to the cause of religion and civilization in these 
islands ; for which reason the decease of ■•oth in London 
was the more to be lamented. Their remains were convey- 
ed to their own country in his Majesty's frigate La Blonde* 
commanded by Lord Byron ; and on the day of their 
arrival at Woahoo, the survivors of their suite, together 
with the chiefs and a large concourse of people, atten ed 
divine service. When it was over, Boki, brother of Ka- 



256 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

raimokoo, who had accompanied the king to Europe as a 
sort of chamberlain, called the attention of the assembly 
to a recommendation which, he said, had been addressed 
to him by the King of England, " to return to his country 
to cultivate general and religious instruction himself, and 
to endeavour to enlighten and reform the people." This 
communication made a deep impression on all present, 
and a new impulse was given to measures in progress for 
the civilization of these islanders, which has led to the 
most favourable results. 

According to the latest accounts, the mission here 
continues to prosper. In April 1826, at an examination 
of the schools held at Honoruru, which is now increased 
to a large town, such evidences of improvement were ex- 
hibited as excited great surprise in the foreign visitants. 
On this occasion, the children were assembled from a 
distance of fourteen miles round ; the number of schools 
was sixty-nine, of native teachers sixty-six, and of scholars 
upward of two thousand four hundred. At the same date 
twenty thousand persons were under some kind of in- 
struction in the different islands ; about half this number 
can read well and eight hundred or one thousand write a, 
legible hand. 

The young king now (1828) fifteen years of age, and 
his sister a year younger, are decided promoters of Chris- 
tianity. The chiefs, following their example, manifest 
great zeal in the erection of places of worship, six of 
which are building in the island of Maui only. Schools 
also are rapidly increasing in all quarters. A translation 
of the Gospel of St. Matthew is finished, and Karaimo- 
koo, who acted as regent after the death of Riho-riho, 
till his own decease in J 827, applied to the chiefs of the 
Society Islands for Otaheitean books and a few good 
teachers. 

A printing-press is still wanting in these islands, to 
second the labours of the American missionaries, who 
are assisted by three Otaheitean teachers. The moral 
effects of their exertions are abundantly evident, and 
though they have had to contend with difficulties, they 
eel assured that a good work has been commenced, 
which they confidently expect to extend itself till the, 
whole of these lands shall be blessed. 



fitcairn's island. 257 

I cannot conclude this survey of the present state of 
Christianity in the South Seas, without adverting to the 
recent discovery on one of its islets of a little community, 
which has not needed any missionary for its conversion. 
I allude to the half-British family, found on Pitcairn's 
Island, situated south-west of the Marquesas, in latitude 
25° south and 13° west longitude from Greenwich, and 
no more than six miles long and three broad. De- 
scendants from some of the mutineers who, in 1789, 
possessed themselves of the British armed ship, Bounty, 
and of Otaheitean women, their existence remained abso- 
lutely unknown til!, in 1808, an American ship chanced 
to touch at the island ; but it was twelve years later before 
any circumstantial account of thern was obtained. The 
narrat^e of the visit paid to the island by Captains Sir 
Thomas Staines and Pipon, in the Briton and Tagus 
frigates, and the delightful picture of the state of its truly 
religious and innocent inhabitants, consisting at that time 
of about forty-six persons, besides infants, must be too 
fresh in the recollection of every reader to need repetition 
here. 

The following reflections, though they have already ap* 
peared elsewhere.*" will not I t»*ust be deemed an inappro- 
priate termination to this chapter : — 

There is pot perhaps any portion of the globe that 
presents at this moment a spectacle so full of interest to 
the contemplative mind as the islands scattered over the 
vast ocean interposed between the Asiatic and American 
continents. Half a century ago many of these islands 
were scarcely known even by name to the civilized world ; 
and most of them, though indeed casually seen by earlier 
mariners, had never been explored bv Europeans, till the 
peaceful expeditions equipped by the British government 
in the early part of the reign of the late king, and the 
indefatigable researches of our great navigator, Captain 
Cook, exhibited their inhabitants in all the freshness of a 
new discovery, and opened to the philosopher a fertile 
theme of inquiry and speculation. 



* See the division of The world in miniature relating to the 
South Sea Islands*— Preface. 



£58 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY'. 

In all these tribes, how distant soever from each other, 
much the same habits and manners and a nearly equal 
degree of barbarism were found to prevail. With the 
benevolent design of improving their condition, the officers 
of our ships industriously introduced among them the 
most serviceable of our domestic animals, to which they 
were utter strangers, and such generally useful vegetable 
productions as were best adapted to the soil and climate 
of their respective islands. The intercourse with Euro- 
peans, which from this time became more frequent, served 
to make these Savages acquainted with the superiority of 
their visiters in all those arts that tend to the preservation 
and embellishment of life. An eager desire to possess 
themselves of our mechanical instruments and a spirit of 
imitation were the natural consequences of this im- 
pression. The change thus gradually operating among 
them was accelerated by the establishment in s* me of the 
islands of missionaries, whose religious labours, however, 
seemed for a long series of years to be totally fruitless. 
Their perseverance has, nevertheless, been crowned with 
a result surpassing the most sanguine expectations ; and a 
revolution, which, we trust, will extend over the whole of 
the Great O^ean, is now in rapid progress among some of 
its tribes. Among Savages who, a short time since, were 
but a {ew degrees removed from the state of nature* 
printing-presses have been established — wrkten laws pro- 
mulgated^-- the trial by jury adopted — -the rudiments of 
navies formed— -regular roads mane — piers constructed — 
churches built — Societies for the dissemination of the 
Scriptures and the encouragement of the arts instituted — 
and the atrocious cruelties of the ancient superstition have 
yielded to the beneficent influence of the Gospei of 
Christ ! 

Sincerely as we should rejoice in such a change, by 
whomsoever effected, we must confess that it heightens our 
gratification to find such wonders accomplished through 
the instrumentality of Englishmen, and much of a British 
spirit and British feelings diffused along with these im- 
provements. The extension of that spirit and those 
feelings to the remotest corners of thf 1 globe we hail with 
cordial exultation, not merely because England is the land 



CONCLUSION. 259 

of onr birth; but because we are convinced that institu- 
tions arising out of them are better calculated to promote 
the liberty, prosperity, and happiness, of mankind, than 
those of anv other nation under the face of heaven. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONCLUSION. 

We have glanced rapidly at the different regions of the 
globe ah 1 their numerous nations, that we might take a 
general survey of the present diffusion of the Christian faith 
among tn .n. To the Christian philosopher this picture, 
historically interesting, is alike a subject of depression and 
exult ition ; an excitement of greater expectations, more 
profound convictions, more philanthropic wishes. 

The knowledge of and belief in divine things are the 
sacred property of every mortal. The wisest of men 
possesses them ; the stupid Savage holds them fast, and 
elevates himself by means of them. This is the everlast- 
ing self-revelation of God in his children — this the irre- 
fragable evidence that we are of his race, spirits sprung 
from the holy, the infinite, the primitive spirit of the 
universe — this the divine inspiration, that we know our 
immortality ! 

Of all who ever lived upon earth — of the philosophers 
of India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Arabia — none ever had 
so clear a view of the profundity of the evidence of God, 
none so fully expounded the relation and connexion of the 
spiritual world with the Supreme Being, as Jesus of 
Nazareth. In him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead ; and 
his revelations flash like rays of light through the darkness 
of the realm of spirits. He had a right to say : " The 
world shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. v 

The various churches which at present exist, whatever 
they may be, as they gradually sprang up, so they shall 
gradually grow old : the light from God is immutable. 



260 SURVEY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Churches are the offspring of the times and like them 
change their forms ; but religion-- the relation of spirits 
to God— is, like the law which produces the appearances 
of Nature, unaffected by the change of time and its phe- 
nomena. 

Meanwhile, let the missionary, whether Catholic or 
Protestant, whether Jesuit, Quaker, Methodist, or Mora* 
vian, preach what he will to the heathen, something divine 
is always enclosed in the external husk of his doctrines, 
This will remain, this will continue to operate and to en- 
lighten, while the husk is decaying and mouldering 
into dust. 

We spirits are not citizens of the earth but of the city 
of God, called the universe, and our life fills not merely a 
moment but eternity. In this exalted position, what can 
we do more worthy of our destination than, like Christ 
and by his word, to release spirits from the shackles of 
error, and to bring them nearer unto God? As every man 
rejoices that he is not a brute, that he has not remained 
an infant ; as parents rejoice to advance their children in 
knowledge : so it ought to be the delight of all adult spirits 
to assist the progress of their junior fellows. 

Religious darkness still rests on a great part of the po- 
pulation of Europe itself; a Christian paganism still stu- 
pefies the great majority of the lower classes of the peo- 
ple. Think of the barbarism of Asia, the savage state of 
the Africans, the forlorn condition of the interior of Amer- 
ica, the altars of Australasia stained with human blood ! 
There is no want of scope for the champions of the word 
of God ; and if the sketch here presented shall have the 
effect of impressing the mind of any philanthropic individ- 
ual with the importance of befriending the efforts of those 
heralds of Christianity and civilization, I shall bless the 
hours devoted to the composition of the preceding page* 



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